BV  660  .S5 

Slattery,  Charles  Lewis, 

1867-1930. 
The  ministry 


VOCATIONAL    SERIES 

THE  MINISTRY 


VOCATIONAL  SERIES 

THB  TEACHER  By  Francis  B.  Pearson 

THE  ENGINEER  By  John  Hays  Hammond 

THE  NEWSPAPERMAN        By  Talcott  WUliams 
THE  MINISTRY  By  Charles  Lewis  Slattery 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS 


VOCATIONAL    SERIES 


THE   MINISTRY 


i09 


BY/  ■^-^::£iLBii 

CHARLES  LEWIS ''SLATTERY,  D.D. 

RECTOR  OF  GRACE  CHURCH  IN  NEW  YORK 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  October,  1921 


PRINTED  AT 

THE  SCRIBNER  PRESS 

NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 


TO  THE  SACRED  MEMORY  OF 

E.  M.  S. 

WHOSE    WISDOM,   SACRIFICE,   AND   LOVE 

ENRICHED   THE   MINISTRIES    OF 

A  HUSBAND  AND  A   SON 


PREFACE 

This  book  has  been  written  not  only  for 
men  seeking  to  know  their  vocation,  but 
also  for  men  who  have  definitely  decided 
to  enter  the  ministry.  Some  men  will  be 
patient  and,  in  its  printed  order,  read  the 
book  through.  Others  may  care  to  use  it 
to  answer  this  question  or  that.  I  hope 
that  the  table  of  contents  will  lead  them  to 
the  answers  which  they  seek. 

Obviously  no  handbook  such  as  this  may 
be  counted  a  sufficient  guide.  Biography 
will  give  color  to  dry  details;  and  varied 
biographies  of  the  ministry  abound.  Two 
books  especially  I  suggest  as  vivid,  con- 
crete illustrations  of  the  life  of  the  ministry. 
One  of  them  chances  to  be  a  book  which  I 
had  the  privilege  of  writing — the  "Life  of 
Edward  Lincoln  Atkinson."*     The  book  is 

*  Published  by  Longmans,  Green,  &  Co.,  London  and 
New  York. 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

so  truly  Atkinson's  that  I  have  no  qualms 
in  drawing  attention  to  the  happy  expe- 
rience of  his  brief  ministry ;  for  it  will  tell  a 
young  man  what  he  may  expect  at  the  be- 
ginning. The  other  book  is  John  Watson's 
*'Cure  of  Souls."*  Here  the  reader  will 
find  the  rich  experience  of  an  older  man. 

C.  L.  S. 
Grace  Church  Rectory 
New  York 
28  July  192 1 

♦  Published  by  Dodd,  Mead,  &  Co.,  New  York. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTE5R  PAOB 

I.    The  Call  of  Every  Man     .     .  i 

II.    What  the  Ministry  Is    .     .     .  8 

III.  The   Essentials  of  a  Call  to 

the  Ministry 17 

IV.  Types  Useful  for  the  Ministry  31 

I.      THE   gentleman  ....  3 1 
II.      THE   MAN   WITH  A   SENSE   OF 

HUMOR 34 

III.  THE    MAN    WITH    A     STRONG 

BODY 38 

IV.  THE  MAN  WITH  IMAGINATION  4 1 
V.      THE   SCHOLAR          ....  44 

VI.      THE   PRACTICAL  MAN.       .       .  48 

VII.      THE    REFORMER      ....  50 

VIII.      THE   MYSTIC 57 

IX.      THE   COMPOSITE  TYPE       .       .  6I 

V.    The  Preparation 65 

I.    IN  SCHOOL 65 

II.      IN   COLLEGE ^0 

III.      THE  CHOICE  OF  A  THEOLOG- 
ICAL SCHOOL      ....  82 
ix 


CONTENTS 

[AFTER  PAGE 

IV.      IN    A    THEOLOGICAL    SCHOOL  87 

V.      IN   ALL  EXPERIENCE  .        .        .  I06 

VI.    The  Specific  Opportunity   .     .  112 

I.      PREACHER  AND   PASTOR  .        .  II3 

II.      A  TEACHER  OF  THEOLOGY       .  1 24 

III.  A      MASTER      IN      A      CHURCH 

SCHOOL   FOR    BOYS          .        .  1 29 

IV.  AN   EXPERT    IN    SOCIAL   AME- 


VII. 


VIII. 


lioration   .... 

.       131 

V. 

AN   ADMINISTRATOR     . 

135 

VI. 

HOW  TO  FIND  one's  PLACE 

138 

The  Necessity  of  the  Ministry     139 

I. 

IN   THE   COMMUNITY   . 

.       143 

II. 

IN    THE   NATION     . 

151 

III. 

IN    WORLD    RELATIONSHIPS 

154 

The 

Compensations     of     the 

Ministry 

160 

I. 

ENOUGH  TO  LIVE   UPON   . 

160 

II. 

THE   JOY   OF   ADVENTURE 

165 

III. 

THE  LOVE    OF   HUMANITY 

168 

A.      IN   THE   COUNTRY        . 

169 

B.      IN   THE   TOWN       .        . 

176 

C.       IN   THE   CITY 

182 

D.      IN  THE  MISSION  FIELD 

189 

IV. 

THE  LOVE  OF  GOD      .       . 

197 

THE    MINISTRY 

I 

THE  CALL  OF  EVERY  MAN 

It  is  a  thrilling  moment  in  the  life  of  any 
boy  when  he  decides  what  he  shall  do  with 
his  life  as  a  whole.  The  normal  time  for 
such  a  decision  is  in  the  years  from  fourteen 
to  eighteen,  when  the  wonder  of  the  world 
is  opening  the  eyes  to  mystery,  responsi- 
bility, and  God.  The  first  choice  may  not 
be  the  permanent  choice;  but,  if  it  is  made 
with  earnestness  and  sincerity,  it  becomes 
an  element  in  the  permanent  purpose,  so 
far  as  that  permanent  purpose  reflects  the 
best  ideals  of  boyhood,  untarnished  by  the 
policy  and  compromise  of  later  manhood. 

If  there  has  been  no  adequate  response 
when  the  soul  wakes  up  and  asks  for  a  task 
worthy  of  a  lifetime,  if  the  decision  has 
been  faced  only  to  be  postponed,  then  the 
man  must,  as  soon  as  he  can,  fix  upon  a 


2  THE   MINISTRY 

vocation.  Some  grave  crisis,  such  as  an  ill- 
ness, a  startling  opportunity,  or  a  war,  may 
arouse  one  from  littleness  to  greatness. 
But  most  people  recognize  small  distinc- 
tion between  one  day  and  another.  Not 
on  a  mountain-top,  but  on  a  dusty  plain, 
the  decision  must  in  many  instances  be 
made.  When  a  man  is  more  than  eighteen 
years  old  and  has  not  yet  fastened  upon  a 
life  work,  he  ought  to  be  deeply  concerned. 
It  may  require  several  years  to  see  the  in- 
evitable vocation  meant  for  him,  but  he 
must  not  drift,  waiting  for  the  winds  to 
blow  him  into  port.  He  must  study  his 
ambitions,  his  capacities;  most  of  all  he 
must  ask  God  to  show  him  what  to  do. 
And  when  he  sees  the  work  meant  for  him 
he  must  do  it,  whatever  his  relatives  and 
companions  may  say  about  it. 

Relatives  and  companions  are  not  always 
safe  counsellors.  Fathers  and  mothers  who 
are  worldly  often  have  unworldly  children. 
Sometimes  a  boy  at  school,  moved  by  the 
appeal  of  a  hero  like  Doctor  Grenfell,  sees 
in  a  flash  what  possibilities  are  ready  for 
him;  he  too  might  go  to  some  far-off  fron- 
tier and  give  friendship  and  skill  to  people 


THE  CALL  OF   EVERY   MAN      3 

in  lonely  need.  The  bank  and  the  office 
look  unattractive  and  cheap.  A  master  in 
the  school  discovers  his  dream,  encourages 
him,  talks  over  details  of  preparation,  fires 
his  imagination  with  the  happiness  that 
such  a  life  of  wholly  unselfish  service  offers 
one.  The  boy  is  sure  of  himself.  Vacation 
days  come.  In  a  summer  morning  under 
the  trees  he  opens  the  subject  to  his 
father:  the  boy's  eyes  shine.  The  garden 
is  like  another  paradise,  and  God  is  walking 
there.  If  any  father  picks  up  this  book  I 
ask  him  to  imagine  what  he  would  say  to 
such  a  son,  declaring  such  a  vision.  If  he 
smiles  patronizingly,  explaining  that  the 
dream  is  very  pretty,  but  is  wholly  unprac- 
tical; if  he  tries  to  dissuade  his  son  from 
what  in  his  heart  he  believes  too  great  a 
sacrifice  for  a  boy  of  his ;  if  he  tells  him  how 
earnestly  he  wants  him  to  stay  in  the  great 
city  and  continue  his  own  lucrative  busi- 
ness; if  the  apparently  loving  tones  take 
effect,  and  the  boy  slips  down  from  the 
exalted  plane  where  he  has  been  living,  and 
regretfully,  pathetically  accepts  the  com- 
monplace career  which  the  so-called  loving 
father  pictures  for  him — then  that  father  is 


4  THE  MINISTRY 

worse  than  a  murderer:  he  has  stabbed  the 
beautiful  spirit  of  his  son ;  he  has  left  a  poor 
dragged-out  being,  who  shall  go  on  to  dull 
prosperity,  a  failure  in  God's  sight.  I  write 
with  intense  feeling,  because  I  know  the 
folly  and  irreverence  with  which  some 
fathers  have  treated  their  boys'  ideals.  I 
should  like  to  warn  boys  that  they  must 
even  in  boyhood  remember  the  Master  who 
said:  ''He  that  loveth  his  father  .  .  .  more 
than  me,  is  not  worthy  of  me."  Even  a 
father's  love  may  reach  only  the  superficial 
in  his  boy's  life;  it  is  only  a  great  and  true 
love  which  may  love  the  boy's  immortal 
soul.  A  boy  should  rejoice  in  his  father's 
care  for  him;  but  he  should  demand  that 
his  father  love  the  very  best  that  is  in  him. 
And  then  there  are  mothers.  A  mother 
is  apt  to  have  more  courage  than  a  father. 
Often  she  dedicates  her  child  in  the  cradle 
to  some  difficult,  heroic  life.  And  she  is 
apt  to  be  readier  for  sacrifice.  The  way 
mothers  let  their  boys  go  off  to  the  war 
demonstrated  what  mothers  are.  But  a 
mother  is  sometimes  unduly  modest  about 
her  son.  She  fears  that  though  he  is  willing 
to  do  some  hard  work  for  men,  he  will  not 


THE   CALL  OF   EVERY   MAN      5 

be  adequate.  She  would  gladly  send  him 
forth;  but  she  does  not  wish  him  to  be  com- 
mon, mediocre,  perhaps  a  failure.  She 
thinks  of  a  man  who  essayed  just  such  a 
life — and  behold  him  now,  frayed,  discour- 
aged, forlorn  !  No:  she  says,  so  far  as  she 
can  see,  there  is  no  material  in  the  life  of 
herself  or  her  husband  to  assure  her  that 
their  son  would  have  the  requisite  metal  for 
such  testing.  He  had  better  do  something 
prosaic  and  easy — something  in  which  she 
thinks  he  could  be  sure  of  success.  She  is 
afraid  to  take  risks.  She  uses  what  influ- 
ence she  has  to  dissuade  him.  Her  love  is 
so  great  that  her  influence  is  decisive.  The 
boy  turns  away  from  his  dream,  utterly 
discouraged.  He  must  be  prosperous,  and 
just  like  the  multitude.  His  dear  mother 
loves  him,  but  not  enough.  It  is  hard  to 
tell  a  boy  that  there  is  anything  higher  than 
a  mother's  love;  but  there  is.  If  God 
speaks  to  his  heart  and  tells  him  that  there 
is  a  life  to  be  lived,  he  must  reach  out  for 
that  life,  and  hope  to  win  his  mother's  sym- 
pathy for  it  as  he  enters  its  peril. 

Then  there  are  companions.     Most  boys 
like  to  do  things  together.     The  leaders  are 


6  THE   MINISTRY 

few,  and  the  crowds  who  follow  them  are 
innumerable.  If  this  is  true  of  mature  men, 
it  is  superlatively  true  of  boys.  It  is  em- 
barrassing to  think  that  your  cronies  will 
draw  their  heads  together  and  speak  merry 
words  about  your  starting  to  prepare  your- 
self for  some  profession  or  occupation  which 
they  think  a  presumption  of  piety  or  conceit. 
A  right-minded  boy  will  not  wish  to  pub- 
lish his  decision.  It  is  a  sacred  hope  which 
he  wishes  to  tell  only  to  one  or  two  older 
persons  at  most.  Only  a  prig  would  court 
publicity.  But  he  imagines  that  the  fellows 
of  his  own  age  must  some  way  suspect  him 
of  setting  himself  up  to  be  different,  if  not 
better.  Any  one  who  is  going  to  make  the 
important  decision  must  be  willing  to  stand 
alone  if  need  be,  to  cast  off  all  thought  of 
what  others  will  think.  Independence  and 
loyalty  require  a  boy  to  say  to  himself  that 
so  high  a  choice  as  the  choice  of  one's  voca- 
tion must  be  beyond  and  above  all  con- 
sideration of  that  public  opinion  which  a 
boy  most  dreads — the  adverse  judgment  of 
the  boys  with  whom  he  plays  or  studies  or 
works.  He  may  incidentally  comfort  him- 
self with  the  conviction  that  they  will  ulti- 


THE   CALL  OF  EVERY   MAN      7 

mately  respect  only  that  companion  who 
sees  straight  and  does  what  is  right  accord- 
ing to  his  own  conscience.  But  just  now 
his  one  thought  must  be  the  frank  deter- 
mination to  make  his  choice  according  to 
the  leadership  of  God  alone. 


II 

WHAT  THE  MINISTRY  IS 

This  whole  book  attempts  to  explain  the 
ministry.  At  this  point  it  seems  wise  to 
put  down  in  as  few  words  as  possible  what 
the  ministry  is.  The  rest  of  the  book,  it  is 
hoped,  will  fill  in  the  details. 

I 

The  ministry  is,  first  of  all,  a  profession 
which  allows  a  man  to  spend  his  whole  life 
in  helping  others.  That  is  his  business. 
The  community  supports  him  for  that  pur- 
pose. A  man  in  business  sometimes  gives 
one  night  a  week  to  a  boys'  club.  As  he 
becomes  interested  in  the  individual  boys 
he  goes  to  see  them  in  their  homes.  Then 
he  becomes  interested  in  the  parents.  He 
sees  conditions  in  American  homes  which 
need  radical  reform.  He  knows  that  only 
personal  service  can  effect  this  reform.  He 
wishes  he  could  give  three  nights  a  week 
8 


WHAT  THE   MINISTRY   IS        9 

and  several  days  each  week  to  the  beguiling 
work  for  his  boys.  But  he  cannot.  After 
all,  he  must  give  his  chief  attention  to  his 
business  that  his  family  may  be  supported, 
and  that  his  colleagues  in  business  may 
know  that  he  is  not  shirking  his  share  of 
the  work.  Inevitably  he  must  look  with 
envy  upon  the  parson  who  is  set  free  to 
spend  all  his  time  in  doing  just  such  work 
as  his  boys*  club  opens  to  him  in  vision. 

The  best  men  long  to  serve.  Every  good 
man  tries  to  do  what  he  can  for  others. 
The  ministry  sets  a  man  free  to  spend  all 
his  time  in  service. 

II 

You  will  instantly  think  of  the  doctor  and 
the  teacher.  Their  lives,  too,  are  dedicated 
to  doing  unselfish  good;  and  the  world 
would  be  a  forlorn  place  without  them. 
All  honor  to  them  in  their  superb  service ! 
But  their  work  is  essentially  limited  to  the 
bodies  and  minds  of  men.  It  is  quite  true 
that  many  a  doctor  heals  the  sick  soul  of 
his  patient,  and  many  a  teacher  builds  up 
the  soul  of  his  pupil,  but  that  is  not  their 
necessary  function.     In  so  far  as  they  be- 


10  THE   MINISTRY 

stow  these  larger  benefits,  they  are  entering 
the  special  domain  of  the  ministry. 

The  ministry  helps  in  any  way  it  can:  it 
teaches,  it  binds  up  wounds,  it  gives  bread ; 
but  its  essential  function  is  to  help  men  in 
the  highest  and  deepest  places  in  their  lives. 
When  they  are  glad,  the  ministry  tries  to 
make  them  generous  with  their  joy;  when 
they  are  grief-stricken,  the  ministry  tries  to 
give  them  hope;  when  they  have  confessed 
awful  sin,  the  ministry  tries  to  open  the 
door  of  their  despair  into  genuine  repen- 
tance and  the  assurance  of  God's  forgive- 
ness. The  very  best  part  of  the  work  of 
the  ministry  is  hidden,  because  it  is  confi- 
dential. 

It  is  a  great  thing,  when  you  have  reached 
a  high  or  a  deep  place  in  life,  to  know  that 
there  is  a  man  in  the  community  to  whom 
you  have  a  right  to  go.  Your  friend  might 
be  bored  or  shocked;  your  family  might  be 
incredulous  or  distressed.  The  parson,  you 
discover,  exists  for  this  very  purpose:  he  is 
to  help  men  in  the  high  and  the  deep  places 
in  life.  He  may  fail.  But  he  will  try. 
And  what  you  tell  him,  no  one  else  in  the 
world  will  be  told. 


WHAT  THE   MINISTRY   IS       ii 

If  it  is  a  great  thing  when  you  are  exalted 
or  abased  to  know  that  there  is  such  a 
would-be  helper  of  mankind,  think  what  it 
must  be  to  be  that  man  himself.  Can  you 
imagine  how  he  must  rejoice  that  men, 
whether  many  or  few,  count  on  him  in  the 
supreme  moments  of  life?  Do  you  think 
he  envies  any  famous  man  his  fame,  any 
rich  man  his  riches,  any  powerful  man  his 
power?  No;  there  is  no  place  in  life  which 
he  would  exchange  for  his  own  place.  He  is 
thrilled  with  the  thought  that  he  is  expected 
to  help  men  in  the  heights  and  the  depths, 
and  he  reaches  out  with  all  his  might  not 
to  disappoint  them. 

This  help  is  given  in  various  ways.  It 
is  often  given  face  to  face.  It  is  quite  as 
often  given  by  sermons,  which  are  straight 
attempts  to  speak  to  a  congregation  as 
one  would  speak  to  an  earnest  friend  who 
wished  to  reflect  upon  the  secrets  of  a  good 
life — begun,  continued,  and  ended  in  God. 
Occasionally  the  help  is  given  by  an  oflicial 
act  like  a  baptism  or  a  marriage  or  a  funeral 
into  which  the  personality  of  the  minister 
has  been  poured,  because  he  himself  has 
been  deeply  moved.     His  voice  has  uncon- 


12  THE  MINISTRY 

sciously  revealed  how  much  he  cares;  and 
therefore  men  suspect  how  his  Master  cares. 
The  help  is  also  given  in  the  Lord's  Supper, 
or  Holy  Communion,  when  the  people, 
obeying  the  command  of  Christ,  come  espe- 
cially near  not  only  to  one  another  but  to 
Christ  Himself,  so  that  their  lives  are  fused 
in  Him  and  His  life  enters  into  them  in  the 
simplicity  of  a  mutual  loyalty  and  a  loving 
faith.  Really  there  is  no  end  of  the  ways 
in  which  a  man  serves,  once  he  takes  the 
service  of  Christian  ministrations  as  his  one 
and  only  business  in  life. 

Ill 

The  vocation  of  the  ministry  would  be 
hopelessly  baffling  if  a  man  had  to  depend 
on  his  own  strength.  He  is  trained  to  look 
for  and  to  find  the  help  which  his  difficult 
task  involves. 


He  finds  this  help  in  two  ways.  The 
first  way  is  through  others.  In  the  begin- 
ning, a  man  depends  a  good  deal  upon 
other  people's  experience.  Men  who  teach 
him  face  to  face  or  through  the  printed  page 


WHAT  THE   MINISTRY   IS       13 

tell  him  the  experience  which  has  come  to 
them.  Their  honesty  and  clear  sight  he 
cannot  doubt.  He  trusts  them.  He  often 
gives  his  parishioners  solid  assurance;  giv- 
ing it,  indeed,  with  gleaming  eye  and  firm 
voice,  because  he  knows  good  men  whose 
word  he  can  and  does  absolutely  trust.  He 
has  entered  into  their  experience  and  appro- 
priated it;  and  it  is,  in  a  genuine  sense,  his 
possession. 

Little  by  little,  as  his  ministry  grows,  he 
learns  immediately  what  life  at  its  highest 
and  deepest  is.  He  sees  it  in  the  faces  of 
his  sorrowing  or  triumphant  parishioners. 
"The  eye  sinks  inward,  and  the  heart  lies 
plain."  He  knows  certain  facts  of  life, 
hitherto  hidden  from  all  eyes,  as  surely  as 
the  scientist  sees  certain  other  facts  of  life 
through  his  powerful  microscope.  As  he 
helps,  he  is  helped.  As  he  brings  assurance, 
he  receives  assurance.  Naturally  shrink- 
ing from  the  delicacy  of  his  mission,  he  is 
fortified  by  the  constantly  enlarging  knowl- 
edge which  his  experience  with  men  is 
giving  him.  As  the  years  pass,  he  can 
say  with  increasing  conviction,  "This  I 
know." 


14  THE   MINISTRY 

B 

The  other  way  in  which  a  minister  finds 
help  for  his  work  is  by  a  growing  intimacy 
with  God.  A  youth  is  rightly  modest  about 
his  knowledge  of  God.  He  knows  that  if 
he  is  to  assist  men  in  the  highest  and  deep- 
est places  in  life  he  must  bring  them  through 
all  human  assurances  to  a  spot  where  they 
will  be  alone  with  God.  There,  quite  alone, 
they  will  receive  the  aid  which  only  God 
can  give.  But  men  will  ask  hard  questions 
about  God;  and  the  neophyte  is  frightened 
lest  his  knowledge  of  God  be  too  dim,  too 
inarticulate,  to  form  a  basis  of  introduc- 
tion.    Now  what  can  be  said  about  this  ? 

First,  a  man  who  goes  into  the  ministry 
is  expected  to  spend  a  good  deal  of  time  in 
prayer  and  in  quiet  reflection  (which  may 
be  a  deeper  kind  of  prayer,  because  it  is  lis- 
tening to  God).  To  act  well  in  any  voca- 
tion, a  man  must  pray  and  think.  One 
does  not  go  into  the  difficulties  of  the  minis- 
try fully  equipped.  The  equipment  is  given 
day  by  day  to  the  man  who  asks  and  then 
listens.     There  need  be  no  fear. 

Secondly,  public  worship  means  more  to 


WHAT  THE   MINISTRY   IS       15 

the  minister  than  to  any  one  else  in  the 
church.  In  much  of  the  service,  he  speaks 
in  the  presence  of  the  people,  for  them  and 
for  himself,  before  God.  Their  silent  and 
most  real  worship  is  joined  to  his.  The  fact 
that  it  is  common  worship  makes  it  possible 
for  each  person  in  the  church  to  come  nearer 
to  God  than  he  could  come  if  he  were  alone. 
The  spiritual  energy  of  the  devotion  and 
aspiration  of  all  is,  in  some  wonderful  way, 
given  to  each  one.  But  every  man  must 
make  his  own  effort ;  then  the  reinforcement 
is  given.  Public  worship  can  be  for  the 
minister  no  perfunctory  or  formal  act.  It 
is  fundamental.  He  goes  out  of  church 
knowing  that  God  is  closer  to  him,  more 
intimately  his  companion,  more  truly  the 
source  and  end  of  all  the  help  he  would  give 
to  mankind. 

In  the  third  place,  a  minister  is  helped, 
as  the  days  pass,  by  appreciating  that  he 
is  a  member  of  Christ's  glorified  body. 
Christ  is  his  Master,  his  Head.  Not  only 
is  he  responsible  to  his  Leader,  who  is  both 
human  and  divine;  but  this  divine  and 
human  Leader  is  also  responsible  to  him. 
The  help  which  the  minister  is  appointed 


i6  THE   MINISTRY 

to  give  IS  not  isolated  and  sporadic;  it  is 
organized  and  continuous.  One  stands  be- 
hind the  ministry  of  the  Church,  who  is 
using  now  this  man,  now  that,  to  bring  His 
unfaiHng  strength  to  the  children  of  His 
Father.  The  man  who  tries  hardest  in  his 
own  strength,  at  last,  with  all  honest  prep- 
aration, yields  himself  to  be  a  medium 
through  which  the  omnipotent  Strength 
may  pass  into  the  life  of  the  man  whom 
the  minister  would  help  with  the  Greatest 
and  the  Best.  Then  he  stands  aside,  as  it 
were,  and  beholds  the  wonderful  works  of 
God. 

The  ministry  gives  a  man  the  most  efiec- 
tive  and  necessary  service  which  one  man 
can  hope  to  give  to  another.  And  the  man 
who  undertakes  it  need  not  be  afraid.  He 
will  himself  steadily  be  given  the  help 
whereby  he  may  be  confident  that  he  shall 
be  able  to  give  the  surest  help  to  others. 


Ill 

THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  A  CALL  TO  THE 
MINISTRY 

Let  us  now  imagine  that  the  boy  or 
young  man  who  reads  this  book  is  wonder- 
ing if  he  is  not  intended  for  the  ministry  of 
the  Church.  The  first  question  such  a  per- 
son will  ask  is  whether  he  believes  he  has  a 
call  to  the  ministry. 


Before  defining  what  might  constitute  the 
signs  of  a  call  to  the  ministry,  I  must  draw 
attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is  no  more 
essential  for  a  clergyman  to  be  called  to  the 
ministry  than  it  is  for  a  teacher  to  be  called 
to  teaching,  or  a  lawyer  to  the  law,  or  a 
merchant  to  the  shop. 

As  you  look  over  the  people  of  a  com- 
munity there  are  certain  men  whom  you  in- 
stantly decide  could  have  done  no  other 
work  than  the  work  they  are  doing.  There 
17 


i8  THE  MINISTRY 

is  the  family  physician.  He  is  so  far  essen- 
tial to  the  lives  within  many  houses,  he  is 
so  blithe  in  the  presence  of  joy  or  of  slight 
ills,  he  is  so  firm  and  sure  in  the  hour  of 
great  need,  he  is  so  absorbed  in  his  profes- 
sion, that  you  could  not  for  one  moment 
imagine  him  anything  but  a  doctor.  You 
know  that  he  has  been  called  of  God.  Then 
there  is  the  famous  banker,  known  perhaps 
on  two  continents.  You  look  deeply  into 
his  life.  You  see  that  long  ago  the  mere 
desire  to  make  money  evaporated.  He  is 
interested  in  huge  enterprises.  He  makes 
railroads  and  steamships  possible.  He  is 
secretly  caring  for  the  unfortunate.  He  is 
sensitive  to  public  panic,  and  often  so  stills 
feverish  men  that  a  national  calamity  is 
averted.  He  watches  men  who  are  honest 
in  the  moment  of  their  danger,  comes  cheer- 
ily into  their  offices,  tells  them  all  that  he 
has  is  behind  them;  and  they  are  saved. 
He  sees  a  bank  about  to  fail,  bringing  into 
its  crash  widows  and  orphans;  he  puts  his 
wealth  into  it,  and  there  is  no  ''run  on  the 
bank";  all  men  trust  it.  It  may  seem  a 
very  worldly  task  to  be  a  banker.  But  this 
man  whom  I  have  described  you  know  God 


A   CALL  TO  THE   MINISTRY    19 

has  called  to  be  a  banker;  you  could  not 
imagine  him  anything  else.  I  remember 
going  into  a  cabinetmaker's  shop  years  ago. 
I  wished  this  man  to  make  me  some  Chip- 
pendale chairs.  He  showed  me  a  distin- 
guished old  chair  which  he  said  he  would 
copy.  I  said,  "Will  you  copy  it  exactly"? 
His  eyes  flashed.  "I  shall  make  better 
chairs,"  he  cried;  and  then  he  showed  me 
a  certain  line  which  I  saw  could  be  im- 
proved. Afterwards  he  broke  part  of  a 
chair  which  he  was  just  making  to  show  me 
that  it  would  break  anywhere  but  in  the 
strong  joint,  which  his  craft  had  fastened. 
That  man,  I  knew,  God  had  called  to  be  a 
cabinetmaker;  and  to  this  day  I  look  at 
those  chairs  with  the  reverence  with  which 
I  look  upon  a  beautiful  picture  or  the  sonnet 
of  a  master  poet. 

In  contrast  with  the  men  who  are  ob- 
viously called,  there  are  the  rank  and  file 
in  every  town,  in  every  city,  who  have  no 
sense  of  vocation.  They  are  like  dumb, 
driven  cattle.  They  work  because  they 
must,  or  they  do  no  work  at  all  because 
they  can  eat  the  bread  of  idleness.  No 
one  likes  to  see  a  clergyman  who,  so  far  as 


20  THE  MINISTRY 

one  can  determine,  has  no  sense  of  voca- 
tion. Neither  does  one  Hke  to  see  any  man, 
whatever  his  occupation,  who  is  not  sure 
that  he  has  been  called  to  do  what  he 
is  doing.  The  responsibility  to  get  God's 
verdict  on  what  you  are  meant  to  do  is  im- 
perative throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  life.  Do  not  comfort  yourself  with  the 
thought  that  you  can  go  into  any  work  in 
life  without  a  call,  provided  you  have  the 
least  hope  of  being  anything  more  than  a 
nonentity.  In  whatever  direction  you  turn, 
you  must  put  yourself  to  the  pains  of  know- 
ing the  signs  which  will  indicate  to  you  that 
you  have  a  call  from  God. 

II 

If  you  have,  then,  an  inclination  to  con- 
sider the  claims  which  the  ministry  has 
upon  you,  how  shall  you  decide  whether 
God  has  called  you  to  it?  For  some  men 
the  heavens  open,  as  they  opened  for  St. 
Paul,  and  there  is  the  light  brighter  than 
the  light  of  the  sun;  everything  is  imme- 
diately clear.  If  you  are  called  in  such  a 
manner  you  have  nothing  to  do  but  obey. 
But    most    men    are    obliged   to   think  out 


A   CALL  TO  THE   MINISTRY    21 

the  problem  in  a  dimmer,  more  gradual 
light.  They  may  in  the  end  be  exactly  as 
sure;  for  God's  revelation  is  always  to  the 
man  who  desires  to  receive  it.  God  will 
always  open  the  door  to  the  man  who 
knocks.  The  experience  of  older  men  may 
show  to  youth  some  of  the  signs  by  which 
God  might  indicate  a  call  to  the  ministry. 

In  the  first  place,  the  superficial  qualities 
of  voice,  presence,  so-called  gifts  of  oratory, 
may  be  put  aside.  They  are  only  useful  if 
more  important  things  have  been  weighed. 
A  man  with  a  rich  voice,  imposing  presence, 
facility  in  utterance,  may  easily  be  only  a 
pompous  seven-day  wonder,  whose  words 
and  life  carry  neither  conviction  nor  help. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  man  with  a  defect  in 
his  speech,  of  insignificant  presence,  of  no 
skill  in  marshalling  w^ords,  may  be  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  all  who  hear 
his  voice  or  look  into  his  eyes,  because  he 
has  certain  qualities  which  the  other  man 
wholly  lacks.  Charles  Lamb  stuttered:  I 
have  often  thought  what  a  wonderful  min- 
ister he  would  have  been — not  because  he 
stuttered,  but  because  he  had  qualities 
which  would   have   made   his  parishioners 


22  THE   MINISTRY 

first  love  him  and  then  follow  his  virtues, 
without  a  thought  about  the  manner  of  his 
utterance.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  super- 
ficial qualities  may  not  help  or  hinder;  what 
I  emphasize  here  is  that  they  are  not  funda- 
mental. 

Further,  young  people  often  have  the  im- 
pression that  only  learned  men  ought  to  be 
in  the  ministry.  A  learned  ministry  is  ex- 
ceedingly desirable;  but  most  clergymen 
to-day  could  not  qualify  before  adequate 
judges  as  learned  men;  and  these  men  who 
are  not  in  any  sense  learned,  but  who  have 
other  admirable  qualities,  are  often  among 
the  most  valuable  officers  the  Christian 
Church  has  now,  or  has  ever  had.  There 
are  certain  demands  which  the  Church 
makes  for  education  in  the  ministry;  but 
these  do  not  include  such  acquirements  as 
would  entitle  a  man  to  be  called  learned; 
nor  do  they  make  a  barrier  to  any  one  who 
has  only  a  very  fair  mental  equipment.  If 
a  young  man  feels  the  call  to  active  life 
rather  than  to  the  life  of  a  student,  the 
ministry  may  still  be  for  him.  Certain 
posts  in  the  life  of  the  Church  require  men 
of  wide  and  deep  knowledge.     Other  posts 


A   CALL  TO  THE   MINISTRY    23 

may  be  manned  by  men  whose  knowledge 
is  only  moderate,  provided  always  that  they 
have  the  fundamental  qualities  of  which 
I  shall  presently  speak.  I  am  trying  to 
sweep  aside  the  qualities  which  are  subor- 
dinate, that  you  may  fix  your  attention  on 
the  two  qualities  which  seem  to  me  of  ele- 
mentary importance. 


The  former  of  these  two  fundamental 
tests  is  so  obvious  that  it  seems  superfluous 
to  mention  it.  It  is  encouraging  that  we 
may  believe  that  young  men  seeking  the 
ministry  in  our  time  take  it  for  granted. 
Nevertheless  it  must  be  put  down  as  the 
primary  qualification  for  the  ministry.  It 
is  this:  Are  you  determined  to  lead  a  good 
and  honorable  life?  You  will  say  that  this 
is  the  question  which  belongs  to  every 
Christian  man  upon  the  threshold  of  his 
Christian  responsibility.  And  you  are  quite 
right.  No  layman  may  point  the  finger  to 
the  black  deed  of  a  clergyman  and  grant 
himself  as  a  layman  the  privilege  of  doing 
the  same  black  deed  without  blame.  Both 
are  equally  bad  in  the  sight  of  God.     Only, 


24  THE   MINISTRY 

when  a  clergyman  goes  wrong,  he  carries 
with  him  the  people  who  have  trusted  him 
as  a  leader  and  guide.  They  are  more  than 
simply  shocked  or  scandalized;  the  props  of 
life  are  suddenly  knocked  from  under  them. 
They  feel  that  no  one  can  be  trusted.  Their 
faith  has  been  cruelly  mocked.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  transparent  goodness  of  a 
clergyman  has  kept  many  a  man  in  his 
town  on  the  right  track.  When  I  say  good- 
ness I  mean  not  simply  Innocence  (though 
I  do  mean  that)  but  unselfishness,  kindness, 
quickness  to  speak  up  for  the  unpopular 
right,  forgiveness  of  injury,  patience,  de- 
tachment from  the  things  of  the  world, 
evenness  of  judgment. 

Lest  the  suggestion  of  such  a  catalogue 
of  virtues  as  this  seem  overwhelming,  it 
must  be  pointed  out  that  these  virtues  are 
put  before  one  as  a  goal.  One  desires  them, 
one  will  honestly  strive  for  them.  We 
generally  attain  in  life  what  we  honestly 
strive  for.  If  a  young  man,  looking  at  the 
ministry,  really  wants  to  lead  the  finest  and 
truest  life  he  can  discover,  then  he  has  ful- 
filled the  first  of  the  qualifications  for  the 
ministry. 


A   CALL  TO  THE   MINISTRY    25 

There  are  one  or  two  details  connected 
with  such  a  principle  which  must  be  frankly 
examined.  A  man  may  hold  back  from  the 
ministry  because  of  an  egregious  sin  in  the 
past.  If  he  be  truly  penitent,  a  man  who 
has  known  the  depths  is  sometimes  turned 
into  the  best  of  saints.  The  youth  of 
Augustine  of  Hippo  was,  the  world  would 
say,  hopeless.  Yet,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
Augustine  became  one  of  the  saints  of  all 
time.  He  never  condoned  his  past;  but  it 
did  not  prevent  his  entrance  into  the  minis- 
try. The  man  who  has  never  fallen  into  a 
disastrous  sin  is  occasionally  so  complacent 
that  he  is  a  veritable  Pharisee,  blind  to  all 
the  irritating  faults  which  make  him  the 
contempt  of  his  neighbors.  It  is  not  what 
a  man  has  been,  but  what  he  means  to  be 
which  is  the  serious  question  as  he  faces  his 
choice. 

Another  detail  to  be  considered  is  that  a 
boy  is  saved  certain  temptations  if  he  de- 
termine early  to  go  into  the  ministry.  A 
great  vocation  set  before  one  is  something 
like  a  man's  engagement  to  a  noble  and 
beautiful  woman;  as  a  man  engaged  to 
marry  one  whom  he  honors  supremely  does 


26  THE   MINISTRY 

all  he  can  to  make  himself  worthy,  so  a 
man,  decided  to  enter  the  ministry,  does 
all  he  can  to  make  himself  worthy  of  what 
he  believes  a  supreme  vocation.  He  keeps 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world.  He  has 
an  inspiring  and  positive  reason  for  keeping 
himself  at  his  best. 

One  more  detail  there  Is  to  think  of. 
Every  one  in  his  senses  wishes  to  be  of  fine 
character.  What  would  one  not  give  to 
have  one's  face  shine  with  the  goodness 
which  now  and  again  shines  in  the  face  of 
the  truly  good  man,  the  man  of  positive 
attainment  in  character!  A  rarely  attrac- 
tive compulsion  of  the  ministry  is  that  day 
by  day  it  urges  a  man  on  to  be  his  best. 
Other  men  do  not  feel  the  same  need  per- 
haps of  absolute  probity;  they  may  not  feel 
that  so  much  depends  upon  it.  The  minis- 
ter is  always  conscious  of  the  necessity  of 
being  good,  in  the  sense  farthest  from  cant 
and  smugness — really  and  deeply  good. 
He  is  fortunate  beyond  other  men  that  he 
has  this  stimulus. 

While  we  must  remember  this  in  all  its 
strength,  we  must  also  be  assured  that  the 
power  of  the  ministry  is  not  in  ourselves. 


A  CALL  TO  THE  MINISTRY    27 

but  in  God.  No  preacher,  for  example, 
would  dare  to  limit  his  message  to  his  own 
attainment.  It  is  what  he  longs  to  be,  not 
what  he  is,  of  which  a  man  thinks  as  he 
preaches.  The  shining  example  to  which 
he  beckons  men  is  not  even  the  best  man 
he  has  ever  known;  but  it  is  the  absolutely 
perfect  incarnate  Son  of  God. 


If  the  desire  to  be  good  is  the  first  of  the 
fundamental  tests  by  which  a  man  may 
discover  his  call  to  the  ministry,  the  second 
is  the  genuine  desire  to  help  individual  peo- 
ple. A  man  who  enjoys  preaching  to  a 
church  full  of  people,  but  is  bored  by  the 
individual  members  of  the  congregation, 
ought  not  to  be  in  the  ministry.  A  young 
man  who  was  teaching  school  the  first 
year  after  his  graduation  from  college,  left 
a  friend  with  whom  he  was  walking  and 
crossed  the  street  to  speak  to  a  man.  Re- 
turning, he  explained  to  his  friend  that  the 
man  to  whom  he  spoke  had  a  boy  in  his 
school;  he  wished  to  tell  him  how  well  his 
boy  was  doing,  how  satisfactory  the  boy 
was,    etc.     The    friend    smiled    and    said: 


28  THE   MINISTRY 

"You  ought  to  go  into  the  ministry;  that's 
the  sort  of  thing  ministers  do."  He  did  go 
into  the  ministry,  and  became  one  of  the 
very  best  ministers  imaginable.  His  friend 
made  a  sagacious  comment ;  Interest  in  Indi- 
viduals, caring  sufficiently  to  go  out  of  one's 
way  to  help,  thinking  and  doing  what  strikes 
most  deeply  for  one  man  at  a  time,  count- 
ing each  man  as  he  comes  worthy  of  one's 
best  efforts — all  that  is  indication  that  one 
is  called  of  God  to  go  Into  the  ministry. 


I  have  mentioned  two  outstanding  tests 
by  which  one  may  judge  if  one  has  been 
called  of  God  to  go  into  the  ministry.  I 
have  not  spoken  of  belief.  I  have  not 
spoken  of  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
I  have  not  forgotten  the  importance  of 
belief.  I  have  not  forgotten  the  supreme 
importance  of  trust  in  our  divine  Master. 
It  is  because  I  am  sure  that  if  a  man  does 
all  he  can  to  keep  Christ's  commandments 
(that  Is,  to  be  simply  and  truly  good  as 
Christ  taught  and  lived)  then  he  shall  know 
the  doctrine  (as  Christ  promised);  and  fur- 
ther, if  he  goes  about  helping  individuals 


A  CALL  TO  THE  MINISTRY    29 

(people  in  prison,  ragged,  hungry,  sick),  he 
shall  find  Christ  (who  said:  "Inasmuch  as 
ye  have  done  it  to  one  of  the  least  of  these 
my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me"). 
And  if  a  man  tries  to  be  as  good  as  he  can 
be  and  to  help  people  as  much  as  he  can, 
then  he  will  cry  out  to  have  his  life  filled 
with  Christ,  not  only  that  Christ  may  give 
His  perfection  to  absorb  the  man's  imper- 
fection, but  that  Christ  may  speak  through 
his  lips,  and  act  through  his  hands,  to  help 
people,  one  by  one,  just  as  He  helped  them 
in  Galilee  years  upon  years  ago.  The  hid- 
den yet  ever  present  Christ  is  the  secret  of 
all  our  enthusiasm  as  we  seek  the  ministry 
of  His  Church.  That  we  may  test  ourselves 
and  know  that  our  enthusiasm  is  not  emo- 
tion merely,  but  is  solid,  and  therefore 
acceptable  to  Him,  we  ask  two  questions: 
Do  I  wa7tt  to  follow  Him — that  is,  do  I  want 
to  be  good  as  He  was  good?  Do  I  want 
to  serve  with  all  my  being  those  whom  He 
calls  His  brothers,  one  by  one,  each  according 
to  his  need? 

If  you  can  answer  these  two  questions 
with  a  frank  and  joyful  Yes,  I  think  that 
you   will   see   the   light   brighter  than   the 


30  THE  MINISTRY 

light  of  the  sun.  I  think  that  the  Lord 
Christ  will  speak  to  you,  telling  you  that 
He  needs  you  to  preach  His  Gospel,  in  deed 
and  in  word,  to  all  the  people  whom  you 
can  possibly  reach. 


IV 

TYPES  USEFUL  FOR  THE  MINISTRY 

Certain  types  of  men  enter  the  ministry 
with  such  quahties  as  conduce  to  its  effec- 
tiveness. These  types  may  not  be  essen- 
tial to  what  in  the  best  sense  we  may  call 
success.  Men  of  quite  different  character- 
istics may  be  so  strong  and  able  that  they 
can  win  without  qualities  which  for  ordinary 
men  are  indispensable.  But  for  every  man 
it  is  an  advantage  to  partake  in  some  degree 
at  least  of  the  qualities  which  in  this  chap- 
ter are  set  down.  If  a  man  can  answer  the 
demands  set  forth  in  the  last  chapter,  he 
will  find  encouragement  if  he  have  these 
additional  traits. 

I 

THE   GENTLEMAN 

To  be  a  gentleman  is  for  one  man  ex- 
ceedingly easy,  for  another  supremely  diffi- 
cult.    The  fact  that  a  man's  ancestors  have 
31 


32  THE   MINISTRY 

been  what  in  a  technical  sense  are  called 
gentlefolk  does  not  necessarily  assure  his 
own  gentility.  The  vulgar  boors  who  are 
brutes  to  their  wives,  bores  to  their  friends, 
and  a  scandal  to  the  youth  of  the  land,  are 
quite  apt  to  be  what  are  called  well-born. 
They  have  an  innate  selfishness  and  crude- 
ness  which  make  them  an  abhorrence  to  all 
decent  people.  The  thin  veneer  of  good 
clothes  and  conventional  manners  make 
their  cheap  characters  only  the  shabbier 
and  more  disgusting  to  the  discreet  ob- 
server. 

On  the  other  hand  out  of  the  simplest 
environment  have  often  come  the  most 
shining  examples  of  the  gentleman  in  suc- 
ceeding generations.  The  man  who  is  al- 
ways gracious  but  not  effusive,  who  is  dig- 
nified but  not  prim,  who  sees  everything 
but  notices  nothing  which  could  embarrass, 
who  avoids  the  words  which  wantonly  open 
wounds,  who,  in  a  word,  is  invariably  kind, 
and  is  able  to  show  forth  his  kindness,  is 
quite  as  likely  to  be  born  in  a  cottage  as  in 
a  palace.  The  title  of  gentleman  trans- 
cends all  class  boundaries.  It  is  one  of  the 
great  words  of  life.     In  the  last  analysis  a 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    33 

gentleman,  like  a  poet,  is  born — not  made. 
And  again,  like  a  poet,  the  gentleman  can- 
not be  sure  that  his  son  will  succeed  to  his 
genius.  The  poet's  son  has  amazing  oppor- 
tunities if  he  is  inclined  to  write  verse;  the 
gentleman's  son  has  also  amazing  oppor- 
tunities if  he  is  inclined  to  practise  the  fine 
art  of  inherent  kindness  nobly  expressed; 
but  gentlemen  in  successive  generations  can 
be  no  more  assumed  than  poets  can  be 
assumed.  The  gentlemen  and  the  poets 
quite  often  appear  in  strange  corners  of 
humanity.     They  are  born,  not  made. 

In  every  town,  in  every  school,  in  every 
college,  are  the  youth  who  stand  out  as 
gentlemen.  They  are  the  delight  of  all  who 
know  them.  One  relies  on  them  in  emer- 
gencies. If  a  willing  hand  is  needed  they 
are  always  ready  to  put  aside  their  own 
convenience  and  do  the  deed  which  needs 
to  be  done.  The  old  are  touched  by  their 
invariable  respect  and  remembrance;  the 
young  look  up  to  them  and  follow  in  what- 
ever leadership  they  may  possess.  Even 
the  dumb  creatures  like  them.  They  are 
unselfish,  considerate,  tactful.  In  one  word, 
they  are  kind;  everything  is  rooted  in  their 


34  THE   MINISTRY 

kindness.  But  kindness  alone  will  not  make 
a  gentleman.  A  gentleman  is  a  kind  man 
who  has  both  the  intelligence  and  the  skill 
to  show  forth  his  kindness. 

A  youth  who  is  growing  up  to  be  a  gen- 
uine gentleman,  or  a  man  who  is  in  the  full 
power  of  his  gentility,  has  an  exceptional 
qualification  for  the  ministry.  He  is  a  type 
which  the  ministry  diligently  seeks.  He 
will,  in  his  own  life,  make  Christ  winning 
and  attractive.  Men  knowing  him  will  the 
better  understand  our  Master. 

II 

THE  MAN  WITH  A   SENSE  OF  HUMOR 

There  have  been  men  in  the  ministry 
with  admirable  records  for  service  who  had 
not  a  ray  of  humor.  They  were  personally 
good,  they  cared  for  each  person  committed 
to  them  with  unfailing  loyalty,  and  they 
did  all  the  details  of  their  office  punctually, 
accurately,  feelingly.  But  they  met  all  the 
irritations  and  inconveniences  of  life  with 
an  invariable  seriousness.  They  worried 
when  they  might  have  laughed.  There 
were  alleviating  conditions,  humorous  situa- 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    35 

tions,  which  they  never  so  much  as  saw. 
They  might  have  found  relief  in  the  queer 
incidents  of  the  morning  for  the  awful  sor- 
row which  they  would  have  to  face  in  the 
afternoon;  they  might  have  come  to  the 
problem  before  them  with  a  readier  solu- 
tion if  they  had  accepted  the  variety  of 
experience  as  God  had  given  it  to  them. 
There  are  good  men  in  the  ministry  without 
a  sense  of  humor;  but  they  are  not  as  good 
as  they  would  have  been  had  they  pos- 
sessed it. 

If  a  man  has  no  sense  of  humor  as  a 
natural  endowment,  he  would  wisely  not 
attempt  to  cultivate  it.  The  man  who  is 
not  funny  but  tries  to  be  funny  is  very 
sad.  He  makes  every  one  sorry  for  him. 
Simply  to  repeat  the  story  which  has  made 
others  laugh,  and  to  repeat  it  because 
they  laughed,  is  a  melancholy  performance. 
Humor  may  be  accompanied  by  a  relish  for 
amusing  tales,  but  it  is  in  no  way  depen- 
dent upon  it.  Humor  is  a  discoverer,  and 
thereby  an  interpreter,  of  life.  It  sees  what 
the  average  intelligence  passes  by,  just  as 
the  artist  sees  sunlight  playing  upon  the 
scene  where  other  men  see  only  a  monot- 


36  THE   MINISTRY 

onous  landscape.  It  sees  sorrow  as  well 
as  joy;  for  pathos  and  tears  are  close  to 
laughter.  It  breaks  up  the  drab  evenness 
of  life,  and  catches  the  high  lights  as  it 
finds  immediately  beside  them  the  deep 
shadows. 

One  of  the  most  astute  judges  of  char- 
acter in  his  time  was  James  Greenleaf 
Croswell.  I  saw  him  once  after  he  had 
witnessed  a  play  by  Bernard  Shaw.  He 
was  disturbed  by  the  play;  he  thought  it 
vulgar.  But  he  was  still  more  disturbed 
by  the  audience.  "They  laughed,"  he  said, 
"at  the  wrong  times.  The  really  humor- 
ous passages  they  ignored  in  silence;  and 
they  roared  with  merriment  when  they 
should  have  wept."  The  son  of  a  clergy- 
man, he  was  a  great  schoolmaster.  His 
clean-cutting  humor  was  an  element  in  his 
success;  it  would  have  been  an  element  in 
his  success  also  had  he  followed  his  father 
in  his  vocation. 

A  boy  or  a  young  man  with  a  sense  of 
humor  sometimes  fears  that  the  ministry  to 
which  he  is  drawn  cannot  rightly  be  his, 
because  he  cannot  always  repress  his  mirth. 
He    has    always    associated    the    ministry. 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    37 

for  some  strange  reason,  with  perpetual 
solemnity;  and  he  fears  that  he  would  dis- 
grace it  and  himself.  What  must  be  said 
with  all  possible  emphasis  is  that  if  one  has 
this  natural  gift  of  humor,  one  has  a  gift 
from  God  for  the  effectiveness  of  the  minis- 
try. If  it  is  pure  and  honorable  in  all  its 
thoughts  and  words,  a  sense  of  humor  not 
only  saves  a  man  from  absurd  awkward- 
ness, self-consciousness,  and  conceit,  but  it 
binds  him  to  his  friends  in  a  deep  human 
sympathy;  and  even  the  stranger,  seeing  the 
gleam  in  the  eye,  is  moved  to  put  confidence 
in  the  man  who  sees  and  understands,  as 
in  a  flash,  the  variety  of  which  life  is  made 
up. 

A  word  of  warning  may  be  added.  A 
sense  of  humor  may  go  astray;  it  may  be- 
come bitter,  sarcastic,  cynical.  A  man  who 
has  allowed  his  humor  to  turn  sour  ought 
to  think  carefully  whether  he  ought  to  go 
into  the  ministry.  Charles  Lamb  and  Dean 
Swift  both  had  a  sense  of  humor.  Lamb's 
humor  was  wholesome,  life-giving;  Swift's 
was  like  a  loathsome  disease.  Swift  would 
have  made  a  clever  politician;  he  did  not 
help  the  Christian  ministry.     If  you  find 


38  THE   MINISTRY 

your  humor  slipping  down  into  cutting  per- 
sonalities, cruel  flings  against  your  victims, 
venom  against  the  world  generally,  pull 
yourself  up  while  there  is  time.  You  are 
in  danger  of  turning  one  of  God's  precious 
gifts  into  that  which  will  ruin  not  only  your 
own  happiness,  but  the  happiness  also  of 
all  your  family,  friends,  and  neighbors. 
Save  for  the  ministry  the  gladness  of  an 
unspoiled  sense  of  humor. 

Ill 

THE  MAN  WITH  A  STRONG  BODY 

Mere  physical  strength  may  be  absurd. 
To  have  protruding  muscles  may  not  fit  a 
man  for  anything  but  the  side-show  of  a 
circus.  Physical  strength  which  spells  en- 
durance, peace  of  mind  under  strain,  ability 
to  work  hard  and  long  without  breaking 
in  any  way  is  a  wondrous  achievement. 
Often  athletes  are  overtrained,  and  though 
they  win  in  youth  astonishing  victories  on 
the  field,  they  are  not  able  to  cope  with  the 
opportunities  of  later  life.  The  ministry 
does  not  need  or  expect  prodigious  physical 
strength;  it  does  ask  for  a  well-hardened 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    39 

body,  able  to  endure  strenuous  work  and 
nervous  strain. 

A  good  deal  of  a  clergyman's  work  must 
be  among  the  sick  and  the  poor.  If  a  p^is- 
toral  call  means  to  the  sick  man,  not  only 
sympathy  and  prayer,  but  also  an  infusion 
of  strength  from  the  presence  of  a  strong 
and  loving  man,  that  call  has  done  good  to 
both  the  soul  and  the  body  of  the  invalid. 
In  the  same  way  when  conditions  are  hard 
in  the  home,  and  want  is  not  far  away,  the 
call  of  the  clergyman  who  does  not  so  much 
suggest  submission  to  what  has  been,  as 
hope  for  the  strength  and  prosperity  which 
honest  effort  may  bring  in  the  future,  is  a 
call  amply  blessed  through  that  clergyman's 
strong  body.  Our  Saviour  once  said  that 
He  perceived  that  strength  had  gone  out  of 
Him.  A  good  man  who  is  physically  strong 
and  well  is  consciously  or  unconsciously 
giving  his  strength  and  health  to  those  who 
are  weak,  discouraged,  fainting.  He  may 
Well  thank  God  that  his  spirit  dwells  in  a 
sound  body. 

All  other  things  equal,  the  ministry  of  a 
man  whose  body  is  firm  and  reliable  has  an 
enormous  advantage  for  Christian  service  in 


40  THE   MINISTRY 

every  department  over  his  colleague  whose 
body  is  frail  and  uncertain.  The  work  in 
any  parish,  in  country  or  in  city,  ought  to 
be  exacting,  even  if  a  man  has  not  found  or 
made  it  so.  The  problems  of  individuals, 
and  the  problems  of  a  parish  as  a  whole, 
demand  the  most  energetic  service  a  man 
has  it  in  him  to  give.  He  must  go  in  and 
out  diligently  among  the  houses,  he  must 
study,  he  must  prepare  sermons,  he  must 
be  to  some  extent  a  man  of  business,  he 
must  do  certain  things  with  his  own  hands 
if  others  fail,  he  must  do  his  share  for  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  Church  or  the  community, 
serving  on  committees,  making  plans  for 
them,  and  doing  many  other  tasks  besides. 
It  is  a  life  of  variety,  and  that  variety 
lessens  the  strain  of  the  amount  of  w^ork  he 
must  do.  Yet,  if  he  live  up  to  his  oppor- 
tunity, the  volume  of  work  is  great.  His 
strong  body  is  an  asset  for  which  he  is  as 
thankful  on  Sunday  morning  in  church  as 
he  is  on  Wednesday  evening  at  an  impor- 
tant meeting  for  parochial  business,  or  on 
Thursday  afternoon  when  he  climbs  the  hill 
to  make  pastoral  calls. 

The  impression  that  the  clergy  are  anae- 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    41 

mic  and  wan  is  fairly  dissipated  in  our  day, 
for  they  are  not;  but  the  husky  youth, 
earnestly  wilHng  to  enter  the  ministry  may 
not  be  aware  how  important  is  the  body 
w^hich  God  has  given  him,  and  which  by 
exercise  and  fine  living  he  has  protected 
and  developed. 

IV 

THE  MAN  WITH   IMAGINATION 

A  man  in  a  shop  has  an  appointed  task 
which  he  does  thoroughly.  While  he  is  do- 
ing his  routine  work,  he  is  thinking  how  the 
instrument  or  part  which  he  is  making  could 
be  improved.  He  experiments;  he  dreams; 
he  sees  a  way — and  presently  he  has  in- 
vented something  new  which  all  sensible 
men  will  desire  to  possess.  He  rises  in  a 
day  out  of  the  ranks  and  becomes  a  distin- 
guished man.     He  has  imagination. 

The  Church  needs  men  of  imagination. 
Ways  good  for  the  nineteenth  century  are 
not,  of  necessity,  good  for  the  twentieth. 
New  needs  demand  new  methods.  The 
Church  has  always  been  a  poet,  a  creator. 
Hospitals,    schools,    Gothic    architecture. 


42  THE   MINISTRY 

stately  music,  huge  parish  houses,  all  came 
out  of  the  creative  or  inventive  instinct  of 
the  Church.  As  the  Church  goes  on  living, 
it  will  find  geniuses  to  express  for  it  the 
solution  of  subtle  problems.  Imagination 
will  do  it. 

There  are  many  earnest  youths  to-day 
who  might  come  into  the  ministry  of  the 
Church,  but  they  fear  that  their  dissatisfac- 
tion with  things  as  they  are  would  make 
them  unfit  for  work  in  the  conserving 
organization  of  twenty  centuries.  They 
vaguely  see  a  new  course  which  might  be 
worth  trying;  but  the  old  men  wouldn't 
like  it — and  they  suspect  that  their  imagina- 
tion had  better  be  carried  to  some  other 
vocation. 

The  Church  is  not  afraid  of  intelligent 
criticism ;  the  Church  appeals  for  it  to  every 
honest  critic  who  has  any  knowledge  of 
what  he  is  talking  about.  That  means  a 
critic  who  really  cares,  and  is  not  simply 
captious,  or,  at  heart,  indifferent.  Of  whom 
could  the  Church  more  truly  wish  criticism 
than  the  devout  young  man  who  cares  so 
much  that  he  is  deliberating  whether  he 
shall  not  devote  his  whole  life  to  the  minis- 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    43 

try  of  the  Church  ?  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
the  tyro's  first  attempt  to  substitute  some- 
thing better  than  the  old  machinery  will 
be  fantastic,  wholly  unpractical.  But  his 
fourth  or  fifth  attempt,  patiently  and  trust- 
ingly waited  for,  may  bring  something  com- 
parable to  a  new  invention  in  the  indus- 
trial world.  The  old  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
may  be  brought  home  to  the  minds  and 
consciences  of  men  as  it  has  not  gripped 
men  for  generations.  The  man  with  imag- 
ination need  not  fear  that  he  is  not  wanted. 
The  real  leaders  of  the  Church  are  not  timid 
about  his  failures ;  they  long  for  his  ultimate 
success. 

To  have  imagination  is  to  be  alert.  Op- 
portunities knock  at  the  door  of  the  Church 
every  day.  New  groups  of  foreigners  come 
to  our  shores;  they  may  be  a  menace  to  the 
nation  if  uncared  for;  the  Church  may  tend 
them,  cherish  them,  love  them,  make  them 
noble  Christian  citizens.  The  industrial 
1  groups  may  think  the  Church  a  selfish,  out- 
worn bigot ;  the  Church  might  do  something 
to  make  these  groups  bow  down  with  joy- 
ful adoration  to  the  Master  of  the  Church. 
A  young  man  who  is  alert  cannot  stand  at 
a  church  door  on  a  busy  week-day  without 


44  THE   MINISTRY 

wondering  how  he  can  bring  the  restless, 
hopeless  faces  into  the  joy  and  peace  of 
Christ's  Church.  Young  men  are  welcome 
to  criticise  every  detail  of  the  machinery  of 
the  Church,  if  only  they  will  use  the  imagina- 
tion which,  beginning  at  criticism,  goes  on, 
with  vigor,  to  discover  what  they,  with  their 
courage  and  hope,  can  bring  to  bear  upon 
the  new  times  to  make  Christ  more  openly 
the  acknowledged  Lord  of  men. 


THE   SCHOLAR 

The  boundaries  of  acquirement  and  tem- 
perament which  hem  in  the  life  of  a  scholar 
are  difficult  to  define.  A  man  may  know 
almost  as  many  facts  as  one  can  read  in  an 
encyclopaedia  and  yet  have  so  little  concep- 
tion of  their  relationship  and  worth  that  he 
can  be  called  only  a  pedant.  No  sane  judge 
would  ever  think  of  calling  him  a  scholar. 
On  the  other  hand  a  man  may  have  excel- 
lent technical  judgment,  he  may  be  able  to 
weigh  and  compare,  and  yet  have  so  little 
knowledge  of  any  department  of  learning 
that  he  too  never  can  be  counted  a  scholar. 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    45 

He  IS  like  a  man  who  knows  the  technique 
of  poetry,  its  metres,  rhythm,  value  of  sylla- 
bles, but  has  no  poetical  ideas  to  put  into 
his  accurate  mould.  As  one  fails  to  be  a 
poet,  so  the  other  fails  to  be  a  scholar. 

A  teacher  in  school  or  college  is  apt  to 
discover  a  boy  or  man  in  his  classes  who 
has  what  the  expert  calls  "the  making  of 
a  scholar."  This  pupil  may  show  unusual 
care  in  the  translation  of  Homer  or  Cicero; 
he  may  demonstrate  a  scrupulous  exact- 
ness, and  be  aware  of  the  subtle  undertones 
which  the  mere  literalist  never  seeks  to  in- 
terpret. Or  the  pupil  may  show  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  relative  value  of  the  events  of 
some  period  of  history.  He  seems  to  have 
an  instinctive  selective  sense  by  which  the 
chief  events  stand  out  in  his  mind,  and  the 
unimportant  or  less  important  dates  and 
names  cluster  about  them.  The  older  man 
exults  in  a  pupil  who  recognizes  shades  of 
meaning,  who  qualifies  his  statements,  who 
can  see  both  sides  in  an  argument,  who  is 
fair-minded,  not  opinionated,  who,  in  short, 
is  by  way  of  becoming  a  scholar. 

As  youth  deepens  into  manhood  such  a 
hopeful  pupil  may  yearn  to  know  the  an- 


46  THE  MINISTRY 

swer  to  some  of  the  deeper  mysteries  of  life. 
He  feels  the  pull  of  God's  loving  power,  he 
reads  of  God's  revelation  of  Himself  in 
foi^mer  generations,  he  hears  sermons,  lec- 
tures, the  conversation  of  his  elders.  He 
would  like  to  weigh  these  matters.  He 
would,  he  believes,  like  to  give  himself  to 
the  life  of  a  scholar  in  the  Church. 

Possibly  the  energetic  friend  may  hesitate 
to  encourage  such  a  youth  to  come  into  the 
ministry,  fearing  that  he  will  be  too  much 
absorbed  in  books,  too  little  interested  in 
people.  Now  let  us  say  candidly  that  the 
man  who  tends  to  be  a  scholar  is  urgently 
needed  in  the  Church  of  our  day.  I  shall 
show  later  how  gravely  he  is  needed  in  the 
teaching  force  of  theological  schools;*  the- 
ology needs  men  who  have  been  technically 
trained  as  scholars  from  their  youth  up;  out 
of  the  depth  of  sound  knowledge  and  ex- 
perience they  are  needed  to  teach  men  face 
to  face,  and  by  accurate,  large-minded  books 
to  teach  those  in  far-off  studies  who  will 
read  their  words.  This,  however,  is  not  the 
only  function  of  scholars  in  the  Church. 
The  parochial  and  administrative  ministry 
*See  below,  page  124. 


TYPES  FOR  THE  MINISTRY    47 

needs  men  who  weigh  their  words.  That 
sort  of  eloquence  which  is  simply  fluent 
and  easy  to  listen  to  is  less  and  less  accepta- 
ble. The  man  who  shouts  that  his  petty 
topic  (whatever  it  may  be)  is  the  most  im- 
portant that  has  engaged  men's  thought  for 
two  hundred  years  does  not  inspire  confi- 
dence. Men  are  glad  to  have  eloquence 
when  it  may  be  found,  but  they  wish  to 
have  it  harnessed  to  accuracy  and  good 
judgment.  The  scholar,  or  the  man  with 
a  scholarly  mind,  may  do  great  things  for 
the  Church,  even  though  he  spend  all  his 
days  in  what  is  called  the  practical  work  of 
the  ministry.  He  may  tone  up  the  utter- 
ance of  the  practical  part  of  the  Church, 
making  men  respect  not  only  its  preaching 
but  its  business  administration  as  well.  We 
sometimes  forget  that  business  men,  even  if 
they  have  not  been  collegians,  are  educated 
men,  because  by  long  training  they  have  be- 
come extremely  careful  not  only  in  the  deeds 
of  their  business  but  in  its  expression;  they 
are,  as  it  were,  scholars  in  business.  The 
practical  ministry  must  not  allow  itself  to 
be  outdone  by  the  carefulness  of  the  com- 
mercial world.     The  Church  is  unfortunate 


48  THE  MINISTRY 

if  those  who  instruct  or  govern  it  must  con- 
tinually be  explaining  that  such  and  such 
words  were  not  meant  at  their  face  value  or 
that  other  words  must  be  entirely  forgotten 
and  forgiven. 

If  any  one  who  reads  this  book  is  keen  to 
be  a  scholar  in  the  Church,  may  these  pages 
convince  him  that  he  will  find  adequate 
scope  for  all  his  inclinations,  and  be  thereby 
a  profitable  servant  in  the  Christian  minis- 
try of  our  day. 

VI 

THE   PRACTICAL  MAN 

Another  type  of  man  useful  in  the  minis- 
try is  the  practical  man.  He  feels  himself 
little  apt  to  be  a  preacher;  certainly,  he 
says  that  he  has  no  chance  of  becoming  a 
scholar;  perhaps  he  is  quite  sure  that  he 
never  could  be  a  large  administrator.  His 
gifts,  if  he  may  call  them  gifts,  are  prosaic. 
His  eyes  are  wide  open  to  details.  He 
notices  that  a  small  boy's  shoes  are  hope- 
lessly worn  out;  he  visits  the  mother  and 
discovers  that,  though  she  makes  every 
effort  to  conceal  it,  poverty  is  pinching  the 


TYPES   FOR   THE   MINISTRY    49 

little  family.  He  then  finds  a  way  to  help 
not  only  the  boy  but  all  others  under  that 
roof,  without  wounding  self-respect  and 
without  delay.  He  notices  that  the  carpet 
in  the  church  is  worn,  and  he  persuades  an 
organization  of  women  to  replace  it.  He 
notices  that  the  gas  eats  up  the  fresh  air, 
and  he  persuades  the  men  to  install  electric 
lights.  There  are  a  good  many  children 
going  wild  in  the  town;  he  finds  a  way  to 
gather  them  in,  interesting  them  in  profit- 
able and  enjoyable  occupation.  The  ^^ex- 
ton  falls  ill  suddenly;  the  parson  builds  the 
fire  and  rings  the  bell.  The  parishioners 
congratulate  themselves  upon  the  invariable 
order  and  promptness  of  all  the  functions  of 
the  parish,  little  knowing  that  to  one  ener- 
getic and  practical  man,  their  pastor,  all 
this  system  Is  due.  In  great  things  and  in 
little  he  is  a  practical  man. 

The  practical  man  Is  more  apt  to  be  un- 
derrated by  himself  than  by  others.  But 
all  men  fail,  as  a  rule,  to  recognize  that  to 
be  thoroughly  practical  in  all  the  relation- 
ships of  life  brings  one  close  to  genius.  And 
without  some  dash  of  the  practical,  men 
possessing  conspicuous  qualities  are  prone 


50  THE   MINISTRY 

to  abject  failure.  If,  therefore,  a  man  is  so 
humble  about  his  qualifications  that  he  sees 
in  his  nature  nothing  to  give  but  practical 
service,  let  him  lift  his  head,  and  confi- 
dently ask  admission  to  the  ministry.  The 
Church  needs  practical  men.  Not  improb- 
ably the  man  who  has  been  faithful  in  the 
details  of  a  small  work  will  be  sought  to 
come  up  higher.  Posts  of  responsible  lead- 
ership in  the  Church  await  men  of  practical 
genius.  One  might  think  that  the  practical 
man  would  easily  be  found.  Evidently  it 
is  not  so;  for  in  all  departments  of  leader- 
ship, there  are  men,  both  blind  and  ineffi- 
cient, attempting  to  keep  their  huge  house- 
hold in  order,  and  lamentably  failing.  They 
have  not  the  practical  gift.  There  is  space, 
in  all  directions,  for  the  man  who  is  first  of 
all  practical. 

VII 

THE  REFORMER 

No  young  man  who  thinks  can  be  satis- 
fied with  the  world  as  it  is  to-day.  Every 
man  with  a  conscience  knows  that  if  right- 
eousness more  firmly  rules  the  world,  vast 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    51 

changes  must  come.  We  sigh  for  the  com- 
parative peace  and  plenty  before  the  Great 
War;  but  if  we  try  to  remember  what  we 
knew  of  the  opening  decade  of  the  twen- 
tieth century,  we  do  not  long  to  return  to 
its  conditions.  Out  of  it  came  the  hideous 
scandal  of  a  world  war,  and  we  know  by 
the  years  which  have  passed  since  the  armis- 
tice that  even  war  has  not  paid  the  awful 
debt  of  human  sin  which  the  world  allowed 
to  roll  up.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign  that  the 
places  where  young  men  congregate  seethe 
with  dissatisfaction.  Many  a  man  wonders 
vaguely  if  he  could  by  any  possible  art  or 
toil  contribute  to  the  reconstruction  which 
is  obviously  demanded;  and  then  he  won- 
ders wistfully  if  he  could  work  out  his  share 
of  the  reconstruction  as  an  officer  in  the 
Christian  Church. 

The  Church  would  welcome  him  on  one 
condition.  Before  I  name  that  one  condi- 
tion, I  must  sweep  away  certain  misconcep- 
tions which  hang  about  the  minds  of  most 
of  the  eager  reformers  outside  the  Church. 
The  first  of  these  misconceptions  is  that  the 
Church  is  so  conservative  that  it  will  cast 
out  any  one  who  tries  to  change  the  existing 


52  THE   MINISTRY 

order  of  society.  There  are  timid  souls  in 
the  Church  to-day  as  there  have  been  timid 
souls  all  through  its  history.  But  as  they 
have  had  little  influence  upon  its  life  in  the 
past,  so  they  have  little  influence  to-day. 
From  the  time  of  our  Saviour  Himself  the 
men  who  have  led,  have  cut  ruthlessly  across 
the  prejudices  of  their  time,  and  they  have 
always  carried  the  oncoming  generations 
with  them.  Majorities  do  not  count  if  the 
minority  (even  a  minority  of  one)  is  on  the 
side  of  God.  The  human  and  fallible  part 
of  the  Church  may  persecute  and  slay  its 
reformers;  the  divine  and  imperishable  part 
of  the  Church  will  give  these  reformers  the 
victory,  not  only  in  the  next  world  but  in 
this.  The  Church  gives  the  reformer  the 
only  reward  a  brave  man  can  desire;  that 
is,  ultimate  and  permanent  success. 

Another  misconception  is  that  the  leaders 
of  the  Church  are  hostile  to  reform.  What- 
ever may  have  been  true  of  other  days,  the 
leaders  now  are  waiting  in  hope  for  the 
youth  who  will  show  a  better  way.  No 
more  conservative  body  of  Church  leaders 
could  be  found  than  the  Bishops  of  the  An- 
glican Communion  assembled  at  the  Lam- 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    53 

beth  Conference  in  London  in  the  summer 
of  1920.  One  of  the  most  observant  of 
these  bishops,  a  man  past  seventy,  said  that 
to  him  the  most  marked  feature  of  the 
conference  was  the  deference  with  which 
the  older  men  Hstened  to  their  younger 
brethren.  All  recognized  the  need  of  re- 
form. The  younger  men,  with  their  ten- 
dency to  radical  ideas,  were  given  a  chance 
to  say  what  they  would  have  the  Church 
do.  And  the  reports  of  the  conference 
were  much  more  modern  and  bold  than  the 
average  congregation,  sitting  in  the  same 
deliberate  fashion,  would  have  produced. 
The  Church  leaders  for  whom  a  young  man 
would  have  most  respect  to-day  are  open 
to  conviction.  They  want  the  ardent  re- 
former in  the  Church.  They  will  give  him 
a  hearing  so  respectful  that  it  may  be  called 
reverent,  because  they  suspect  that  the 
youth  may  speak  for  the  Lord.  If  he  can 
prove  his  mission,  they  will  give  him  a 
chance  to  lead. 

Now  I  am  ready  to  announce  the  one 
condition  on  which  the  Church  will  wel- 
come the  reformer.  Let  me  put  this  con- 
dition in  the  words  which  Edward  Lincoln 


54  THE   MINISTRY 

Atkinson,  a  young  clergyman,  wrote  to  an 
ardent  social  reformer  who  wondered  if  the 
ministry  might  be  the  proper  place  for  him: 

Your  letter  warms  my  heart  and  stirs  my 
enthusiasm.  If  your  chief  work  is  to  be  an 
agitator  and  "talker" — ^just  putting  a  new  creed 
on  the  market — I  say,  hesitate.  Has  your  move- 
ment men  of  will  as  against  emotions  and  vo- 
cabularies, men  who  themselves,  single-handed, 
will  resolve  upon  a  course  and  immediately 
show  those  who  care  to  look  that  they  have 
started  out  upon  it?  All  of  us  Easterners  fail 
somehow  to  incarnate  our  principles  into  ac- 
tion. If  you  can  acty  I  say  God  bless  you  and 
let  you  go — to  become  a  god  too.  The  heathen 
were  right — the  gods  rain  and  thunder.  They 
do  things.  Don't  think  I  am  afraid  of  fanati- 
cism. I  am  only  afraid  of  inaction.  Let  some- 
body die  game,  as  John  Brown  died.  I  wish  we 
could  make  success  a  duty.  If  you  go  into  it, 
you  must  be  willing  to  succeed  the  way  Brown 
did — and  that  means  being  a  "fanatic"  and 
"game"  to  the  end — which  often  is  appropri- 
ately death. 

This  does  not  mean  for  one  moment  that 
the  social  reformer  in  the  ministry  shall 
not  plead  for  what  he  sees  to  be  needed  in 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    55 

revising  the  social  organism.  He  must 
gain  all  the  knowledge  he  can,  and  speak 
all  the  wisdom  God  shall  give  him  to  speak. 
But  as  he  sees  men  in  relationship  and  in 
the  group,  he  must  not  lose  sight  of  the 
individual.  His  whole  time  must  not  be 
spent  in  the  announcement  of  wholesale 
methods,  in  the  hopeless  attempt  to  re- 
deem the  mass  in  the  mass.  Even  if  a 
man's  chief  sin  is  in  his  wrong  relationship 
to  his  brother  men,  and  even  if  this  wrong- 
headed  man  be  multiplied  into  millions, 
yet  the  reformer  must  begin  with  the  re- 
construction of  individual  men.  When  one 
man  is  made  a  consciously  renewed  man, 
he  is  as  leaven.  The  yeast  begins  to  work; 
there  is  hope  that  the  whole  lump  will  be 
leavened.  The  reformer's  imposing  pro- 
gramme comes  down  from  the  clouds  and 
is  alive  in  humanity.  It  is  demonstrated 
to  be  workable. 

If  the  Church  is  to  have  reformers  In 
succession  to  the  great  ones  of  the  past,  it 
must  have  men  who  aspire  to  make  this 
world  the  kingdom  of  God  and  of  His 
Christ;  that  is,  a  really  Christian  organism 
and   not   a   loosely   assorted   collection   of 


56  THE   MINISTRY 

Christian  individuals;  nor  may  they  think 
loosely  of  the  kingdom  as  an  expansive, 
intangible  vapor;  they  must  think  of  it  as 
the  sum  of  the  subjects  of  the  King,  with 
responsibilities  to  one  another  and  to  Him, 
and  they  must  initiate  their  reform  by 
kneeling  down,  as  their  Lord  knelt  down, 
and  they  must  wash  the  feet  of  those, 
whom,  one  by  one,  they  would  recreate  in 
the  image  of  Christ. 

One  evening  in  London  I  stood  in  Hyde 
Park  and  listened  to  a  missionary  from 
China,  who  preached  to  a  throng  of  men 
from  a  wooden  pulpit.  He  told  of  a  theo- 
logical student  who  was  being  examined 
for  Orders.  The  examiner  said,  "What 
would  you  say,  if  a  man  asked  you,  'What 
shall  I  do  to  be  saved?"*  The  young  man 
answered  promptly,  "I  should  say,  Sir,  'Do 
you  mean  business?**'  That  is  exactly  the 
answer  the  best  men  in  the  Church  will 
give  to  the  question  of  the  youthful  re- 
former when  he  asks  if  the  Church  wants 
him.  If  he  means  business,  if  he  will  put 
his  theories  into  the  individual  life,  if  he 
will  work  for  Peter  and  Mary  and  Paul 
and  John,  and  through  them  start  his  glo- 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    57 

rious  conceptions  into  history,  then  the 
Church  not  only  wants  him,  but  even  begs 
him  to  come  in.  The  Church  is  always 
being  reformed.  If  any  man  sees  a  way 
to  make  our  age  the  greatest  period  of  re- 
formation of  all  time,  let  him  dare  to 
dream,  to  serve,  to  meet  opposition,  if  need 
be  to  die  for  his  cause,  and  then  let  him  rest 
confident  that  the  Church  will  number  him 
with  all  the  saints,  and  strive  to  continue 
his  work  till  it  meets  perfection  in  the 
kingdom  fulfilled. 

VIII  ' 

THE   MYSTIC 

If  one  may  judge  from  the  wide-spread 
interest  in  books  on  prayer  and  on  mysti- 
cism there  is  reason  to  believe  tl>at  a  great 
many  people  in  our  time  are  confident 
that  they  have  found  a  direct  approach 
to  God.  Modest  and  reticent  youth  do  not 
care  to  talk  of  the  deepest  emotions  of 
their  souls,  but  undoubtedly  many  earnest 
young  men  who  are  thinking  of  the  possi- 
bility of  the  ministry  are  mystics.  With- 
out minimizing  the  value  of  historic  Chris- 


58  THE  MINISTRY 

tianity,  they  feel  that  they  have  a  more 
immediate  proof  of  God's  revelation  than 
any  book  or  institution  can  show.  They 
daily  meet  God  face  to  face.  They  may 
not  have  any  theological  terms  to  explain 
their  conviction.  They  find  equally  wel- 
come the  words  of  Christ,  **Lo,  I  am  with 
you  alway"  and  *'The  Father  shall  give 
you  another  Comforter  (which  is  the  Holy 
Ghost),  that  he  may  abide  with  you  for 
ever."  They  exult  in  the  words  of  St. 
Paul,  "For  I  am  persuaded,  that  neither 
death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principali- 
ties, nor  powers,  nor  things  present,  nor 
things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor 
any  other  creature,  shall  be  able  to  sepa- 
rate us  from  the  love  of  God  which  is  in 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."  And  again  their 
hearts  respond  when  they  read,  ''The  Spirit 
itself  beareth  witness  with  our  Spirit,  that 
we  are  the  children  of  God."  They  are 
humbly  yet  confidently  on  intimate  terms 
with  the  Most  High. 

The  Church  always  welcomes  the  mystic. 
Now  and  again,  in  so  far  as  he  is  obedient 
to  his  heavenly  vision,  he  becomes  the 
saint  who  dominates  not  only  his  own  time 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    59 

and  place,  but  also  the  times  that  come 
after,  in  countries  far  separated  from  his 
own  home.  He  gives  men  a  sense  of  the 
presence  of  God,  because,  if  his  goodness 
match  his  devotion,  God  shines  through 
him.  He  comforts  as  no  other  in  sorrow. 
He  stimulates  the  flimsy  will.  He  con- 
founds the  compromise  of  the  worldling, 
and  encourages  the  daring  of  the  man 
whose  eye  is  single.  He  makes  men  know 
how  truly  God  cares  for  them;  how  truly 
God  protects  them;  how  truly  God  lives 
for  them  and  in  them. 

Like  every  other  genius,  the  mystic  has 
his  base  imitator.  The  fraudulent  mystic 
creates  his  god  out  of  his  selfish  prejudices 
and  conceits,  and  then  falls  down  and  wor- 
ships his  image  in  the  cloud.  Men  shrink 
from  this  pseudo-mystic.  He  is  abhorrent, 
in  proportion  to  his  vanity  and  irreverence. 
But  he  is  so  rarely  a  young  man  that  we 
need  not  dwell  on  the  unhappy  picture. 

There  are  young  men  looking  forward  to 
a  life  deeper  and  deeper  in  the  knowledge 
and  the  love  of  God.  They  may  be  uncer- 
tain whether  in  the  distractions  of  the 
ministry  they  will  be  able  to  keep  high  their 


6o  THE   MINISTRY 

ideal  of  communion  with  God.  They  may 
fear,  and  not  unreasonably,  the  too  fre- 
quent and  familiar  contact  with  the  ex- 
ternal processes  of  religion.  They  may 
suspect  that  many  in  the  Church  are  not 
quite  in  earnest,  are  conventional,  are  only 
nominally  submitting  to  Christ's  complete 
dominance.  They  may  dread  disillusion- 
ment. The  mystic  fears  a  grave  risk  when 
he  binds  his  life  to  an  institution.  But  the 
Church  cries  out  for  the  mystic,  and  in  all 
ages  even  extreme  ecclesiasticism  has  been 
consistent  with  fervent  mysticism.  Shall 
one  not  count  one's  own  security  a  little 
thing,  if  the  other  children  of  the  heavenly 
Father  may  catch  the  blessed  privilege  of 
union  with  Him,  if  true  religion  may  be 
spread  farther  and  farther  in  the  world  till 
the  joy  of  fellowship  with  God  fills  the  earth 
as  now  it  fills  the  heavens?  Will  one  not 
run  into  danger  of  losing  God  by  trying  to 
possess  Him  in  isolation  ?  The  selfish  mys- 
tic is  in  more  serious  peril  than  the  mystic 
in  bad  company.  God  reveals  Himself  to 
love  which  ignores  its  own  safety,  and  rises 
to  that  hill  on  which  the  loving  Son  of  God 
gave  His  life. 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    6i 

If  you  are  a  mystic,  give  your  life  where 
your  mysticism,  being  lost,  will  be  for  ever 
found.  Come  into  the  ministry  of  the 
Church  and  teach  men  to  find  God,  that  He 
may  be  revealed  to  them  what  He  always 
has  been  to  them  (though  they  knew  it 
not),  their  Saviour  and  their  Friend. 

IX 

THE   COMPOSITE  TYPE 

No  one  who  reads  this  chapter  will  see 
himself  wholly  in  any  one  of  these  types 
which  I  have  tried  to  describe.  One  is  cer- 
tain to  claim  a  portion  of  two  or  more  of 
the  types.  All  of  us,  so  far  as  we  analyze 
ourselves,  discover  that  we  are  composite. 
One  is  a  practical  mystic  with  imagination. 
Another  is  a  vigorous  personality  with  a 
sense  of  humor  and  a  joy  in  practical  re- 
ligion. I  suspect  that  of  all  possibilities 
the  composite  type  is  the  most  useful  in 
the  world;  therefore  God  takes  pains  to 
give  us  variety  in  our  characters.  Resting 
in  His  love,  we  may  believe  that  He  will 
accept  in  the  ministry  of  His  Church  all 
the  qualities  which  we  reverently  and  un- 


62  THE   MINISTRY 

selfishly  use  in  His  Name.  "There  aie 
diversities  of  gifts  but  the  same  Spirit.'* 

Examples  abound.  Charles  Kingsley  was 
a  practical  pastor,  preaching  homely  ser- 
mons to  his  village  flock.  At  the  same  time 
he  had  such  vivid  imagination  that  he  repro- 
duced in  his  novels  the  early  Christian  ages 
(as  in  Hypatia),  or  the  age  of  Elizabeth  (as 
in  Westward  Ho!).  Moreover  he  was  vi- 
tally interested  in  social  reform  (as  in 
Yeast  and  Alton  Locke),  And  his  physical 
prowess  entered  into  all  his  varied  success. 
To  turn  to  Kingsley's  great  antagonist, 
John  Henry  Newman,  we  find  a  man  who 
joined  skill  in  theology  (as  demonstrated  in 
his  History  of  the  Arians)  to  subtle  imagina- 
tion (as  we  see  it  in  his  Dream  of  Gerontius), 
We  think  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  not  only 
the  rapt  prophet,  but  the  powerful  reformer. 

Very  often  in  such  fusion  of  qualities, 
one  desirable  quality,  seeming  almost  essen- 
tial, may  be  quite  lacking.  For  example, 
a  great  preacher,  able  to  fire  men's  souls, 
may  have  so  fragile  a  body  as  to  be  ex- 
hausted after  each  sermon,  making  him 
doubt  if  ever  he  can  preach  again.  One 
of  the  most  glorious  preachers  of  all  time 


TYPES   FOR  THE   MINISTRY    63 

was  Frederick  William  Robertson,  but  his 
body  was  so  inadequate  to  its  task  that  at 
thirty-seven  he  was  gone  from  the  weakness 
and  limitations  of  this  world ;  leaving,  how- 
ever, behind  him  the  report  of  sermons 
which  perhaps  have  influenced  more  men 
and  women  than  any  preacher's  whose  ser- 
mons have  come  down  to  us.  Another  ex- 
ample of  a  similar  victory  over  physical 
weakness  Is  George  Tyrrell.  The  short- 
sighted policy  which  would  exclude  all  frail 
constitutions  from  the  ministry  would  de- 
prive the  church  of  some  of  its  most  inspir- 
ing leaders.  The  question  to  ask,  as  one 
looks  towards  the  ministry  is  not  what  lack 
there  may  be  here  or  there,  but  what  are 
the  positive  capacities  which  can  transcend 
defects,  and  bring  to  the  Church  a  superb 
gift  of  human  service. 

In  any  case,  the  most  useful  men  are  they 
who  combine  in  their  characters  and  attain- 
ments several  of  these  types.  Thus  the 
ministry  is  made  rich;  and  men  know  that 
it  attracts  and  uses  the  most  varied  and  win- 
ning of  human  traits.  Do  not  despair  be- 
cause you  feel  yourself  w^eak  in  one  or  other 
of    the    characteristics,     but    select    your 


64  THE   MINISTRY 

strongest  good,  strengthen  it  in  itself,  and 
build  about  it  so  staunch  a  wall  of  other 
qualities,  that  it  will  give  to  your  ministry 
color  and  joy  and  abounding  fruit. 


V 

THE  PREPARATION 

If  a  young  man,  receiving  an  intimation 
that  the  ministry  is  for  him,  wishes  to  test 
that  intimation,  he  will  naturally  ask  what 
would  be  required  of  him  should  he  decide 
ultimately  to  be  a  clergyman.  Before  he 
examines  what  would  be  expected  of  him  in 
the  actual  exercise  of  the  ministry  he  must 
find  out  whether  he  is  willing  to  take  the 
time  and  to  do  the  work  which  (by  the 
experience  of  others)  would  make  him  use- 
ful upon  his  ordination. 

I 

IN   SCHOOL 

If  a  boy  in  a  high  school,  or  in  a  boarding- 
school,  should  feel  the  impulse  to  consider 
the  ministry  as  his  vocation,  he  ought  to 
make  up  his  mind  to  go  to  college.  Excel- 
lent clergymen  have  had  no  college  train- 
ing; but  they  did  not  deliberately  omit  it. 
65 


66  THE   MINISTRY 

The  call  to  the  ministry  has  come  to  them 
in  business  or  in  the  law  or  in  medicine. 
They  cannot  prepare  now  as  they  might 
have  prepared  had  they  seen  in  boyhood 
what  their  final  calling  was  to  be.  The  mo- 
ment a  boy  sees  the  ministry  before  him, 
he  should  desire  the  best  education  he  can 
get.  And  he  should  determine  that  the 
first  part  of  that  education  should  be  to  fit 
himself  for  college. 

Since  the  kind  of  college  course  one  shall 
take  is  partly  determined  by  the  studies  of 
one*s  preparatory  education,  some  thought 
must  be  given  to  the  courses  one  shall 
choose  in  school.  Latin  and  Greek  should 
be  started  as  early  as  possible,  that  one 
may  go  on  with  them  in  college.  Doubt- 
less many  have  understood  the  New  Testa- 
ment who  have  not  known  Greek,  but  no 
one  who  has  really  studied  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  Greek  would  willingly  give  up  the 
subtle  insight  which  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  language  has  given  him  into 
the  truth  of  the  New  Testament.  Latin 
is  equally  important:  it  is  an  indispensable 
element  in  the  equipment  of  a  cultivated 
man.     That  it  is  a  dead  language,  that  it 


THE  PREPARATION  67 

is  not  obviously  practical  to  learn  it,  is  one 
reason  why  it  is  well  to  learn  it.  The  long 
experience  of  educated  men  is  by  no  means 
to  be  offset  by  the  suspicious  questionings 
of  a  generation,  almost  past,  which  set  too 
great  store  on  what  it  narrowly  called 
"practical." 

If  some  immediate  proof  be  needed  for 
the  value  of  Latin  and  Greek,  apart  from 
the  training  in  exactness  and  intellectual 
toil,  it  is  particularly  wise  to  remember 
that  nothing  so  stimulates  a  boy  or  a  man 
to  concise  and  varied  expression  in  English 
as  the  translation  of  a  Greek  or  Latin 
classic  into  the  vernacular.  As  a  boy 
grows  to  see  the  shades  of  meaning  in  an 
ancient  foreign  word  his  own  English  vo- 
cabulary is  enlarged  to  meet  the  need. 
The  best  English  is  written,  not  by  the 
quacks  in  literature  who  go  far  afield  to  be 
queer  and  startling  in  their  use  of  words, 
but  by  the  experts  who  have  come,  through 
the  years,  to  an  exact  knowledge  how  most 
simply  to  express  in  English  the  intricate 
thought  which  has  been  presented  to  them 
in  another  language.  This  is  particularly 
true  of  Latin  and  Greek,  because  they  are, 


68  THE   MINISTRY 

to  a  large  extent,  the  foundation  of  English. 

The  old  prescribed  course  of  school  and 
college — Greek,  Latin,  mathematics,  with 
only  a  misty  fringe  of  history,  science, 
and  modern  literature — may  never  return. 
Very  likely  we  may  have  something  better 
if  we  keep  steadfastly  in  mind  that  some 
things  are  to  be  thoroughly  learned,  and 
that  we  shall  not  be  content  with  a  general 
smattering  of  the  beginnings  of  many  things. 
One  of  the  college  courses  for  which  one 
will  make  ready  in  school  is  some  course  in 
science.  The  clergyman  who  knows  some- 
thing in  science  fairly  well  is  a  more  useful 
man.  He  may  be  interested  in  botany, 
in  geology,  in  astronomy.  Rather  than 
have  a  superficial  knowledge  of  every  branch 
of  science  (even  if  that  were  possible),  far 
better  is  It  for  him  to  fix  upon  a  natural 
science  which  commands  his  enthusiasm 
from  the  first.  He  may  wisely  consider 
this  In  his  school  days. 

Every  high  school  or  boarding-school  in- 
cludes courses  in  English  reading.  But 
aside  from  such  prescribed  courses,  the  boy 
ought  to  be  reading,  for  diversion,  certain 
of  the  great  American  and  English  story- 


THE   PREPARATION  69 

tellers.  He  ought  to  know  Washington 
Irving,  Hawthorne,  Stevenson,  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  Walter  Scott.  These  will  all 
require  some  effort  on  his  part.  Each  is 
quite  different  from  all  the  rest.  The  cheap 
and  easy  tale  of  the  day  he  may  read  with- 
out harm;  he  can  hardly  read  it  with  much 
profit.  The  youth  of  seventeen  who  can- 
not speak  intelligently  of  Rip  Van  Winkle, 
David  Balfour,  Mr.  Micawber,  Henry  Es- 
mond, Colonel  Newcome,  Quentin  Dur- 
ward — and  a  good  many  others  besides — 
has  wasted  his  hours  of  freedom.  Even  if 
he  is  quite  sure  that  he  is  to  go  into  the 
ministry,  no  sane  guide  wishes  or  expects 
him  to  read  St.  Augustine's  Confessions^ 
Thomas  a  Kempis's  Imitation,  or  Jeremy 
Taylor's  Holy  Dying.  The  boy  would  not 
understand  them  if  he  did  read  them.  His 
religious  reading  should  be  the  religious 
reading  of  every  wholesome  normal  boy. 
The  four  Gospels  should  be  his  main  de- 
pendence. Over  and  over  let  them  be 
read;  then  let  him  catch  the  music  of  Ro- 
mans viii,  I  Corinthians  xiii.  Psalms  xxiii, 
xxiv,  xxvii,  xlii,  Ixxxiv,  ciii,  and  cxxi,  Isaiah 
xl,  and  then  the  stories  of  Jacob,  Joseph, 


70  THE   MINISTRY 

David,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  immortal 
company  in  the  Bible.  But  it  is  the  life 
of  Christ  he  must  know — the  plain  New 
Testament  story,  without  commentary  or 
book  of  interpretation.  He  must  know 
this  first  and  last,  and  all  the  days  between. 
It  is  the  only  religious  reading  in  school 
days  which  a  boy  needs,  for  it  is  the  best 
of  all,  and  he  can  understand  it. 

II 

IN   COLLEGE 

In  college  the  less  a  man  thinks  of  the 
courses  which  will  specifically  fit  him  for 
the  ministry,  the  better.  What  he  needs 
is  a  broad  general  education  which  will  fit 
him  to  be  an  intelligent  companion  for  all 
sorts  of  people,  a  man  who  can  sympathize 
with  the  best  intellectual  effort  of  all  grades 
of  society.  For  instance  it  would  be  ab- 
surd for  him  to  take  a  course  in  Hebrew  in 
college.  If  he  is  to  study  Hebrew,  that 
belongs  to  his  professional  course  in  the 
theological  school.  So,  too,  he  ought  not 
to  take  a  course  in  ecclesiastical  history. 
He  needs  every  day  of  the  college  years  for 


THE   PREPARATION  71 

the  general  foundation  of  an  educated  man. 
There  are  courses,  such  as  English  writing, 
psychology,  and  sociology,  which,  while 
contributing  to  general  culture,  do  have 
especial  meaning  for  one  later  entering  the 
ministry.     Of  these  I  shall  speak  presently. 

As  college  courses  are  now  planned,  there 
are  varied  groupings  of  courses  by  which  a 
man  may  come  to  the  day  when  he  receives 
his  degree,  with  some  satisfaction  in  the 
knowledge  he  has  gained. 

Because  the  ministry  is  set  to  bring  the 
Gospel  home  to  the  hearts  of  the  people 
through  the  life  and  teaching  of  qualified 
teachers,  it  is  important  to  catch  the  power 
of  great  teachers  so  far  as  the  student  may 
come  in  contact  with  them.  In  every  uni- 
versity, in  most  colleges,  there  are  two  or 
three  pre-eminent  men.  They  have  some- 
thing more  than  knowledge  of  their  subject. 
They  do  know  exact  facts,  and  can  tell 
them;  but  to  this  dry  accomplishment  they 
add  what  we  variously  call  **  magnetism," 
"personality,"  ''greatness."  It  is  an  inde- 
finable quality,  but  every  alert  young  man 
feels  it.  A  young  man  may  not  safely 
fasten  upon  one  such  teacher  and  straight- 


72  THE   MINISTRY 

way  lose  himself  in  him,  satisfied  to  be  his 
pale  reflection,  his  tinkling  echo.  By  fol- 
lowing In  college  two  or  three  teachers  of 
this  caliber,  the  Impressionable  youth  may 
find  his  own  soul  taking  on  strength  and 
beauty.  Because  his  masters  are  strong 
and  copies  of  no  one,  he  must  be  strong, 
master  of  his  own  soul,  a  man  preparing 
to  be  a  guide  and  strength  to  others.  The 
first  thought  in  selecting  college  courses  is 
to  talk  with  upper  classmen  and  recent 
graduates,  and  so  discover  who  are  the 
great  teachers.  One  must  acquire  some 
measure  of  their  power. 

Ordinarily  the  student  will  find  that  the 
man  who  in  a  masterful  way  gives  himself 
to  a  subject  of  learning  is  teaching  some- 
thing which  the  eager  man  will  desire  to 
know.  Sometimes  a  university  Is  so  fortu- 
nate as  to  have  so  many  really  distin- 
guished men  as  teachers  that  an  under- 
graduate must  decide  which  of  the  geniuses 
he  may  pass  by  in  order  to  gain  the  inspira- 
tion of  others.  However  this  may  be,  there 
are  certain  courses  which  he  will  strive  to 
include  in  his  four  years. 

I    have    already    spoken    of    Latin    and 


THE   PREPARATION  73 

Greek,  and  of  one  branch  of  natural  sci- 
ence. I  need  say  no  more  of  the  impor- 
tance of  pursuing  Latin  and  Greek  in  col- 
lege for  the  sake  of  general  culture;  but  I 
do  wish  to  add  a  few  words  about  the  im- 
portance of  a  stiff  college  course  in  some 
branch  of  natural  science.  Experience  dem- 
onstrates that  engineers,  and  other  men 
strictly  trained  in  science,  are  exact  and 
precise  in  their  use  of  words.  Most  men 
who  must  speak  often — preachers,  legis- 
lators, and  others — tend  to  be  diffuse. 
Sometimes  they  seem  to  have  no  thought 
whatever  hidden  away  in  a  sea  of  words; 
at  other  times  they  exaggerate  their  feel- 
ings and  emotions,  or  they  distort  the  truth 
by  overemphasis  upon  a  tiny  fragment. 
Men  shrug  their  shoulders  and  whisper, 
"He  is  slopping  over  again";  or,  "You 
can't  depend  on  him."  A  preacher  was 
once  describing  the  merry  song  of  a  bird 
in  the  wet  and  crash  of  a  thunder-storm, 
as  an  illustration  of  courage.  He  was 
drawing  on  his  imagination — and  igno- 
rance. Two  ornithologists  chanced  to  be  in 
the  congregation;  one  tapped  the  other's 
arm,  saying,  "John,  Pll  give  ten  thousand 


74  THE   MINISTRY 

dollars  for  that  bird."  The  study  of  a 
natural  science  will  be  conducive  to  clear 
thinking,  to  a  sharper  value  of  its  expres- 
sion, to  an  honest  discrimination  between 
what  is  known  to  the  speaker  and  what  is 
not  known.  The  discipline  of  a  scientific 
course  in  college  will  cultivate  such  con- 
ciseness and  exactness  as  shall  give  to  the 
listener  to  certain  sermons,  three  or  five  years 
hence,  an  honorable  attention  and  respect. 
Then  the  student  should  elect  rigid 
courses  in  English  writing.  These  are 
needed  not  so  much  to  stimulate  utterance 
as  to  train  the  mind  to  find  the  clearest 
words  to  express  the  truth.  Serious  boys 
thinking  of  the  ministry  are  prone  to  have 
a  disastrous  facility  together  with  a  ten- 
dency to  fine  writing.  Their  emotions  are 
deep.  Under  the  encouragement  of  the 
English  department  they  tell  what  they 
think;  fortunately  for  them,  clever  men, 
not  unsympathetic,  reveal  the  much-ado- 
about-little  which  goes  rolling  on  page 
after  page.  Once  a  college  freshman  wrote 
of  his  feelings  when  he  heard  a  magnificent 
organ  played  by  a  famous  musician.  The 
revered  teacher  Wrote  in  red  ink  across  its 


THE   PREPARATION  75 

cover:  ''Fifty  years  ago  this  would  have 
been  called  very  beautiful.  I  don't  like 
it."  It  was  a  disappointing  day  for  the 
youth;  but  a  day  for  which  soon  he  was 
giving  thanks.  To  learn  early  in  college 
to  write  clear,  direct,  honest,  forcible  Eng- 
lish is  a  valuable  asset  for  any  future;  it  is 
particularly  valuable  for  one  whose  future 
is  the  Christian  ministry. 

Another  department  of  learning  which 
the  college  undergraduate  should  explore, 
at  least  for  a  short  distance,  is  philosophy. 
I  remember  gratefully,  in  my  own  case, 
courses  in  Greek  philosophy,  ethics,  Ger- 
man thought  from  Kant  to  Hegel,  and 
Cosmology — chiefly  a  criticism  of  Herbert 
Spencer.  My  college  happened  to  have  a 
philosophical  department  rich  at  that  time 
in  truly  great  teachers.  Much  of  the 
ground  covered  by  philosophy  in  college 
is  covered  by  theology  in  the  divinity 
school;  but  it  is  covered  in  a  distinctly 
different  way.  In  college  one  is  sitting 
beside  men  who  are  more  apt  to  turn  out 
to  be  bankers,  merchants,  writers,  teachers, 
than  clergymen.  The  student  absorbs  the 
lectures  not  consciously  as  a  man  soon  to 


76  THE   MINISTRY 

be  a  theological  student,  but  as  a  man 
among  men.  It  is  truth  for  truth's  sake, 
and  not  for  any  ultimate  use  to  which  it 
may  be  put.  Besides  this,  the  teachers 
themselves  would  rarely  qualify  as  teachers 
in  any  theological  school,  even  if  they  were 
willing,  to  try.  So  long  as  there  are  people 
in  the  world  whose  doctrines  do  not  tally 
with  the  accepted  tenets  of  orthodox  the- 
ology it  is  well  that  a  young  man,  who 
must  live  and  teach  in  a  world  where  such 
leaders  have  enormous  influence,  should 
know  what  they  teach.  To  respect  their 
honesty,  to  become  oneself  a  capable  judge 
of  evidence,  of  logic,  of  intuitive  truth,  to 
be  so  well  taught  that  one  is  both  free 
enough  and  wise  enough  to  criticise  the  con- 
clusions of  a  learned  man,  that  is  the  bene- 
fit of  philosophy  soundly  taught  in  a  credit- 
able university.  It  is  quite  true  that  some 
young  men  lose  their  balance,  become  either 
frightened  chickens  or  cringing  parrots;  in 
the  latter  instance  they  are  quite  apt  to  go 
on  asking  themselves  philosophical  riddles 
to  the  end  of  their  days,  and  never  put 
their  hands  to  any  practical  task.  But  the 
normal   youth   finds  his  mind,   and   some- 


THE   PREPARATION  ^^ 

times  his  soul,  In  these  stiff  courses  of  frank, 
unhampered  thought. 

It  would  be  strange  if  in  early  youth  the 
person  who  is  determined  to  go  into  the 
ministry  did  not  enter  a  period  of  religious 
depression  and  intellectual  doubt.  Any  one 
who  has  some  knowledge  of  the  Interior  ex- 
perience of  men  who  have  become  clergy- 
men is  aware  that  the  man  who  does  not 
enter  this  period  of  testing  is  the  exception. 
The  time  of  doubt  varies.  It  may  be  in 
school,  in  college,  in  the  theological  semi- 
nary, in  the  first  parish,  sometimes  in  the 
full  tide  of  a  man's  power.  If  it  Is  early 
the  student  sometimes  gives  up  his  prep- 
aration for  the  ministry;  if  It  is  later,  the 
clergyman  sometimes  gives  up  his  parish 
and  enters  secular  life.  But  the  strongest 
men,  sure  of  the  faith  within  them,  face  the 
storm,  conquer  their  fears  and  their  doubts, 
and  come  forth  to  teach  with  a  conviction 
which  has  been  bought  with  a  price;  they 
are  the  inspiration  of  the  world  about  them. 
Because  this  dreary  and  black  day  is  most 
apt  to  come  in  college,  I  must  speak  of  it 
here. 

The  collegian  ought  to  know  that  he  is 


78  THE   MINISTRY 

not  unfortunate  if  he  feels  the  difficulties 
of  faith  in  a  world  teeming  with  theories 
how  best  to  explain  the  countless  mysteries 
which  human  psychology  and  modern  sci- 
ence have  revealed.  The  university  where 
scholarship  is  most  unhampered  may  have 
influential  scholars  in  professorial  chairs  who 
are  indifferent  to  the  doctrines  of  Christian- 
ity. They  are  rarely  aggressively  negative; 
they  are  usually  only  agnostic.  If  such 
people,  with  their  commanding  influence, 
are  in  the  world — and  they  are — it  is  much 
better  that  they  should  be  met  in  college 
than  in  any  other  place.  For  there  they 
stand  with  others  equally  accredited  to 
teach.  And  among  the  others  are  massive 
personalities,  aglow  with  enthusiasm  and 
well-reasoned  knowledge,  eager  to  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  truth  which  the  Christian  Church 
has  taught  all  down  the  centuries. 

When,  therefore,  a  young  man  in  college 
finds  that  some  shining  light  in  the  college 
world  reveals  the  barrenness  of  his  convic- 
tions, he  is  not  bound  to  fight  his  battle 
alone.  It  is  only  good  intellectual  fairness 
which  would  cause  him  to  turn  to  the  other 
strong  men  whom  he  respects  and  who  may 


THE   PREPARATION  79 

fortify  his  wavering  faith.  Because  he  has 
seen  the  depths  he  may  be  the  better  able 
to  scale  the  heights.  When  a  young  man 
was  warned  not  to  enter  a  certain  univer- 
sity because  the  faith  which  his  home  had 
given  him  would  be  imperilled  by  the  free- 
dom of  utterance,  Phillips  Brooks  wrote: 
**  There  are  young  men  there  of  every  form 
of  religious  faith,  and  many  who  have  no 
faith.  There  are  scoffers,  perhaps  there 
are  blasphemers.  There  are  also  earnest, 
noble,  consecrated  Christian  men,  and  many 
souls  seeking  a  light  and  truth  which  they 
have  not  yet  found.  You  will  meet  in  the 
college  what  you  will  meet  in  the  world. 
You  will  have  to  choose  what  you  will  be, 
as  you  will  have  to  choose  all  your  life. 
You  will  find  all  the  help  which  Christian 
friends  and  Christian  services  can  give  to  a 
young  man  whose  real  reliance  must  be  on 
God  and  his  own  soul."  Bishop  Brooks 
was  thinking  more  especially  of  a  man's 
fellow  students,  but  the  words  would  apply 
with  equal  force  to  a  man's  teachers. 

A  graduate  of  the  University  of  Wales 
told  me  that  the  most  stimulating  part  of 
his  undergraduate  life  was  participation  in 


8o  THE  MINISTRY 

discussion  classes  (a  method  first  introduced 
in  German  universities).  Under  the  gui- 
dance of  one  of  the  professors  a  voluntary 
group  (varying  from  twelve  to  fifty  In  num- 
ber, usually  about  twenty)  would  meet  for 
informal  discussion.  The  topics  might  be, 
for  example,  "William  James's  Theory  of 
Emotions,"  or  "Bradley's  Appearance  and 
Reality,"  or  "Ethical  Consciousness,"  or 
"The  Development  of  Self."  There  was  a 
good  battle  always;  criticism  was  unembar- 
rassed; doubts  were  fearlessly  uncovered; 
issues  were  boldly  met.  Men  found  their 
convictions,  and  were  inspired.  Men  who 
take  advanced  courses  in  American  univer- 
sities know  something  of  this  method  in  so- 
called  seminars;  but  these  are  apt  to  be 
technical,  and  are  always  confined  to  men 
interested  in  one  narrow  field  of  research. 
To  assemble  students  with  varied  points  of 
view,  to  have  the  scientific  student  attack 
the  student  of  metaphysics,  and  to  have 
both  send  the  fire  of  their  scepticism  into  the 
faith  of  the  student  of  a  formal  theology,  is 
excellent  discipline  for  every  one,  especially 
for  the  man  who  hopes  later  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  thoughful  men. 


THE   PREPARATION  8i 

In  general,  then,  the  man  looking  for- 
ward to  the  ministry  will  spend  his  time  in 
college  acquiring  what  will  make  him  an 
intelligent  man  among  men.  He  must  be 
sure  to  know  something  well.  To  be  ver- 
satile, to  be  able  to  talk  on  many  subjects, 
is  not  valuable,  unless  there  be  a  foundation 
of  true  learning — one  subject  on  which  you 
may  venture  to  talk  with  experts.  But, 
granted  that  a  man  have  some  solid  acquire- 
ment, there  are  certain  branches  of  learning 
of  which  one  may  begin  to  know  something 
in  college  with  the  hope  of  going  farther  in 
one's  own  private  reading  in  after-years. 
Among  the  courses  which  one  will  decide 
to  be  necessary  are  certainly  Latin,  Greek, 
one  branch  of  natural  science,  ethics,  psy- 
chology, English  writing,  at  least  one  mod- 
em language  (French  or  German,  according 
as  one  has  learned  one  or  other  in  school); 
and  among  the  courses  which  one  will 
choose,  in  addition,  according  to  one's  en- 
thusiasm and  the  power  of  those  who  teach 
them,  will  be  courses  in  philosophy,  in 
economics,  a  brief  period  of  history  inten- 
sively studied,  some  one  of  the  fine  arts, 
and   the   knowledge   of   some   language   in 


82  THE   MINISTRY 

order  to  study  thoroughly  some  outstand- 
ing genius  (for  example,  Italian,  to  intro- 
duce one  to  Dante).  Four  years  are  a 
short  time,  and  one  cannot  wisely  seize 
upon  too  many  subjects.  Mistakes  are  in- 
evitable. But  if  a  college  graduate  really 
knows  something,  has  a  vision  at  least  how 
wide  and  diverse  is  human  knowledge,  and, 
in  the  end,  respects  accuracy  and  truth, 
he  has  spent  four  years  to  marvellous  ad- 
vantage. He  is  making  a  good  journey 
towards  the  ministry  of  Him  who  called 
Himself  Son  of  Man. 

Ill 

THE  CHOICE  OF  A   THEOLOGICAL  SCHOOL 

In  choosing  a  theological  school  many 
elements  enter  in.  Convenience  (either  of 
neighborhood  or  of  expense)  ought  not  to 
be  a  deciding  factor.  A  school  which  has 
even  one  really  great  and  inspiring  teacher 
upon  its  faculty  is  worth  considering.  Ed- 
wards Park  at  Andover,  Alexander  V.  G. 
Allen  at  Cambridge,  George  Park  Fisher  at 
Yale,  William  Porcher  du  Bose  at  Sewanee, 
and   Walter  Rauschenbusch  at   Rochester, 


THE   PREPARATION  83 

were  the  magnets  which  drew  keen-minded 
youth  to  their  seminaries.  To  know  any 
one  of  these  men,  as  a  pupil  knows  a  friendly 
master,  was  in  itself  a  liberal  education. 
Much  more  than  the  information  bearing 
upon  an  important  course  of  study  was 
acquired  from  them.  They  opened  doors, 
whence  men  could  look  out  into  the  wide 
reaches  of  learning  and  original  thought. 
Even  a  rather  stupid  man  caught  a  glimpse 
of  what  it  was  to  be  a  Christian  scholar. 

An  indispensable  element  in  the  theo- 
logical school  to  be  chosen  is  that  its  faculty 
surely  know  the  past  and  the  present  knowl- 
edge which  has  been  gathered  within  their 
respective  departments.  There  are  some 
men  who  know  all  that  the  Fathers  of  the 
first  three  centuries  said  about  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,  but 
whose  only  acquaintance  with  later  reflec- 
tion upon  these  books  is  the  fugitive  article 
in  some  half-popular  magazine.  There  are 
others  who  know  practically  every  modern  ■ 
theory  about  the  New  Testament  but  who 
have  no  interest  in  any  thought  recorded 
before  the  year  1850.  I  do  not  know  that 
in    any    seminary    of    theological    learning 


84  THE   MINISTRY 

either  of  these  defective  classes  of  teachers 
is  represented.  But  I  have  suspected  it 
sometimes.  If  a  wide-awake  young  man 
is  going  to  study  theology  he  must  desire 
to  sit  under  a  teacher  who  is  neither  afraid 
nor  indolent.  Pitiful  is  the  case  of  a  man 
who  goes  placidly  through  his  theological 
course,  and  five  or  ten  years  after  his  ordi- 
nation discovers  that  there  was  a  Tubingen 
Hypothesis,  or  a  man  named  Strauss,  or 
another  named  Darwin. 

The  seminary  is  the  place  in  which  to 
face  squarely  all  the  difficulties  which  beset 
inherited  faith,  and  also  to  extract,  from 
what  at  first  seem  difficulties,  the  genuine 
contribution  towards  a  firmer  and  larger  or- 
thodoxy. Bishop  Wilberforce  thought  the 
doctrine  of  Evolution  the  thief  which  would 
steal  away  men's  faith  in  God  the  Creator; 
the  modern  bishop,  using  the  doctrine  of 
Evolution  to  illustrate  the  ancient  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  design,  sees  in  the  continu- 
ous process  of  creation  the  indwelling  Spirit 
of  God.  The  Bishop  of  Natal,  fifty  years 
ago,  believed  that  to  question  the  tradition- 
ally received  information  about  the  authors 
and  dates  of  the  Old  Testament  would  be 


THE   PREPARATION  85 

to  endanger  men's  faith  in  the  Bible.  To- 
day every  thoughtful  leader  in  the  Church 
Universal  knows  that  the  Bible  is  quite 
capable  of  protecting  its  own  truth ;  and  the 
whiter  the  light  which  beats  upon  its  pages, 
the  more  distinct  will  its  divine  message  be. 
These  are  simple  illustrations  from  com- 
paratively recent  history  to  show  how  dan- 
gerous are  those  teachers  who  try  to  shut 
up  the  truth  into  their  tiny  systems.  The 
only  safe  theological  school  is  the  school 
where  the  teachers  care  first  of  all  for  the 
truth  from  whatever  source  it  may  come, 
and  whithersoever  it  may  lead. 

The  theological  school  is,  first  of  all,  a 
school  of  sound  learning.  But  a  school 
might  be  learned,  and  yet  most  inade- 
quately fit  a  man  for  the  ministry.  While, 
therefore,  you  are  casting  your  eye  over  the 
theological  seminaries,  you  need  to  ask 
whether  the  seminary  you  are  inclined  to 
select  produces  men  who  are  enthusiastic 
in  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  we  may 
call  religion.  The  test  which  most  con- 
cerned the  anxious  relative  of  the  new 
dominie  in  The  Bonnie  Brier  Bush,  was 
that  he  should  in  his  first  sermon  speak  a 


86  THE   MINISTRY 

good  word  for  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  the 
rehgion  of  the  young  man  for  which  she 
was  awaiting  some  infalHble  sign.  Rehgion 
is  easily  parodied.  Philhps  Brooks  used  to 
tell  of  his  first  evening  at  the  theological 
seminary.  He  went  to  a  prayer  meeting, 
and  was  utterly  discouraged  because  he  felt 
that  he  never  could  rise  to  the  exuberant 
piety  of  his  classmates.  The  next  morning, 
he  told  us,  he  was  the  only  man  in  the  class 
who  had  learned  his  lesson  in  New  Testa- 
ment Greek.  Religion  must  come  to  the 
surface,  but  what  appears  must  be  the  real 
thing,  and  not  a  vapor,  however  richly 
colored. 

In  a  truly  faithful  theological  school  re- 
spect for  sound  learning  and  willingness  to 
express  religious  enthusiasm  must  go  side 
by  side.  To  be  merely  exact  and  pains- 
taking leaves  a  man  dry,  cold,  forbidding; 
to  be  merely  exuberant  leaves  a  man  super- 
ficial, and  therefore  to  the  earnest  inquirer 
utterly  disappointing.  If  you  find  gradu- 
ates from  the  seminary  you  have  almost 
chosen  not  only  solid  in  their  attainment 
but  fervent  in  their  devotion  to  the  Lord 
Christ  then  you  may  clinch  your  decision. 


THE   PREPARATION  87 

That  is  a  good  school  for  you  to  choose. 
You  may  hope  to  grow  in  its  halls  into  a 
serious  and  joyful  messenger  of  the  Master 
who  said,  "  I  am  one  that  hath  told  you  the 
truth." 

IV 

IN  A  THEOLOGICAL   SCHOOL 

Once  in  a  theological  seminary,  what  may 
one  expect?  I  suppose  that  most  laymen 
imagine  that  a  theological  school  is  like  a 
mausoleum — very  dignified  and  proper,  but 
so  solemn  as  to  verge  upon  despair.  To 
those  of  us  who  have  had  the  privilege  of  a 
really  good  theological  school,  the  seminary 
is  like  a  garden.  It  has  no  tomb-like  walls. 
The  garden  is  an  old  garden.  Saints  and 
scholars  have  walked  there  long  years  ago. 
Some  of  the  trees  are  old,  some  were  planted 
only  this  year.  There  are  some  picturesque 
ruins,  but  the  new  part  of  the  palace  is 
comfortable  in  the  sunlight.  And  through 
the  garden  walk  pleasant  friends,  all  intent 
upon  one  thing — how  to  be  messengers  of 
that  Radiant  Person  who  walks  in  the  gar- 
den in  the  cool  of  the  day.     There  is  play 


88  THE   MINISTRY 

and  much  laughter,  as  well  as  study  and 
reverent  worship.  The  fellowship  is  not 
only  student  with  student,  but  it  is  often 
student  with  teacher.  Quite  often  the  best 
friend  won  in  that  varied  garden  is  the 
learned  master  who  at  first  seemed  too  far 
along  the  path  for  one  to  catch  up  with  him 
to  confer  with  him  upon  the  things  con- 
cerning the  Kingdom  of  God. 

What  I  desire  to  make  clear  is  that  there 
is  no  more  normal  life  than  life  in  a  theo- 
logical school.  For  many  a  man  there  have 
been  no  happier  years  than  the  three  years 
spent  there.  Part  of  the  happiness  comes 
from  the  fact  that  all  the  tentative  deci- 
sions of  the  past  are  fulfilled  in  the  definite 
decision  upon  a  life-work.  The  man  is 
upon  the  final  stretch  of  road  which  leads 
to  his  vocation.  The  possibilities  of  other 
roads  are  taken  from  his  mind.  His  heart 
is  fixed. 

Part  of  the  joy  is  the  discovery  that 
the  student's  companions  are  all  passing 
through  the  same  exultant  experience.  In 
college  some  men  were  thinking  how  much 
money  they  could  make  as  bankers,  or 
how  famous  they  might  be  as  lawyers,  or 


THE   PREPARATION  89 

what  discovery  they  might  make  as  physi- 
cians, or  what  invention  they  might  pro- 
duce as  engineers,  and  so  on,  almost  indefi- 
nitely. These  dreams  and  hopes  were  all 
good,  some  of  course  higher  than  others, 
but  they  were  dissimilar,  a  mixture  of  al- 
truism and  selfishness  in  varying  degrees. 
Now,  though  the  physical  journey  from 
college  to  seminary  may  have  been  only 
half  a  mile,  the  spiritual  journey  may  have 
been  the  length  of  a  universe.  In  the  truly 
adequate  seminary  adequately  furnished 
with  students,  the  men  will  all  have  their 
faces  in  one  direction.  They  are  prepar- 
ing for  a  life  which  is  to  be  for  others,  most 
of  all  for  God  and  His  Christ.  Later  they 
may  become  self-centred,  conceited,  sel- 
fishly ambitious,  worldly.  But  they  are 
now  caught  in  a  garden  of  beautiful  ideals. 
And  they  are  all  looking  the  same  way. 

I  am  not  thinking  merely  of  my  own 
happy  experience.  I  have  heard  the  same 
testimony  given  by  others,  not  now  and 
then,  but  constantly.  Very  often  I  have 
known  a  man  to  hesitate  in  starting  upon 
the  theological  course.  Almost  always  I 
have   known   such   hesitating   men   to   say 


90  THE   MINISTRY 

within  the  first  half-year:  "I  never  sus- 
pected it  would  be  like  this !  It  is  glori- 
ous !  All  the  men  have  their  faces  in  the 
same  direction."  And  there  with  the  proper 
reticence  of  youth  they  stop,  but  we,  who 
remember,  know  that  they  all  are  looking 
to  Christ,  who  is  saying  to  them,  as  He 
has  said  to  disciples  all  through  the  years, 
"Follow  me."  They  are  like  the  first  joy- 
ful disciples  walking  with  Jesus  by  the  Sea 
of  Galilee.  They  know  at  last  what  it  is 
to  be  "called,"  not  only  one  by  one,  but 
as  a  company. 

The  modern  theological  school  is  offering 
varied  courses.  Thirty  years  ago  and  less, 
we  all  studied  about  the  same  courses. 
For  example,  though  we  might  not  lisp 
Hebrew  in  our  sleep,  we  all  learned  pain- 
fully to  read  part  of  Genesis  and  a  few 
Psalms,  so  that  even  yet  we  can  under- 
stand a  dictionary  article  which  includes 
Hebrew  words.  Now,  unless  a  man  has  a 
special  bent  for  Hebrew  or  intends  to  teach 
it,  he  is  not  required  to  elect  it.  He  is 
expected,  if  he  be  dispensed  from  Hebrew, 
to  take  some  course  equally  strenuous. 
Whether  a  man  acquire  his  knowledge  of 


THE   PREPARATION  91 

the  Old  Testament  through  its  ancient 
language  or  through  easier  devices,  he  must 
determine  that  while  he  is  in  the  seminary 
he  shall  know  the  history,  the  traditions, 
the  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
the  candid  interpretation  of  it  as  modern 
scholarship  understands  it.  No  layman  in 
his  parish  should  know  more  of  it  than  he 
does. 

The  New  Testament  in  Greek  should  be 
known  thoroughly.  The  Gospels  and  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  should  be  known  to 
the  last  iota.  And  a  man  should  covet 
every  atom  of  knowledge  which  has  ever 
been  won  for  the  life  of  our  Saviour.  The 
** Lives  of  Christ"  should  be  studied,  that 
one  may  know  how  that  Life  appeals  to 
every  temperament. 

Church  history  is  next  in  importance. 
If  taught  by  a  master,  it  will  be  almost  as 
the  continuation  of  the  New  Testament. 
It  will  be  God's  leadership  revealed  in 
time.  It  will  strengthen  faith  and  give 
one  the  judgment  whereby  man's  frailty 
may  be  separated  from  God's  wisdom,  and 
one  will  see  where  loyalty  and  service 
should    be    given.     However    faithfully    in 


92  THE   MINISTRY 

college  one  may  have  studied  any  part  of 
the  last  twenty  centuries,  the  same  period 
ought  to  be  seen  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  Church.  Theology  is  largely  historical, 
and  only  by  seeing  its  growth  in  the  neces- 
sities of  human  experience  can  a  man  be- 
come fully  aware  of  the  inevitability  of 
certain  doctrines.  There  are  truths  which, 
lost  or  minimized  in  one  age,  reassert 
themselves  again  and  again  in  succeeding 
ages;  whereby  the  conclusion  is  reached 
that  they  are  inalienable  possessions  of 
normal  and  rational  humanity.  The  stu- 
dent who  believes  that,  in  spite  of  all  hu- 
man currents,  wilfully  or  unconsciously 
flowing  against  it,  the  purpose  of  God  is 
majestically  sweeping  on  through  history, 
has  a  confidence  in  God  which  is  close  to 
the  revelation  of  the  divine  in  the  Gospel 
of  Christ.  To  find  the  Church  expressing 
the  deepest  longings  of  the  human  heart 
is  to  discover  that  doctrines  are  not  the 
cold,  lifeless  formulae  men  sometimes  think 
them,  but  that  they  are  the  records  of  con- 
victions which  the  best  people  of  their  time 
felt  and  knew  in  their  own  experience. 
They  become  intimations  of  truth  which 


THE  PREPARATION  93 

we  ourselves,  in  a  distant  age,  may  verify 
in  our  present  experience.  Church  history  is 
a  necessary  part  of  every  theological  course. 
In  addition  to  the  discovery  of  doctrines 
revealed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  history,  the 
theological  student  must  seek  the  knowl- 
edge of  theology,  as  one  competent  teacher 
will  declare  it  to  him.  Every  man  who 
preaches  the  Gospel  ought  to  have  in  the 
background  of  his  preaching  a  consistent 
theory  of  life.  This  theory  will  not  be  ex- 
actly the  system  of  theology  which  he 
learns  from  the  doctor  of  divinity  who  lec- 
tures to  him  in  the  theological  school.  It 
will  be  influenced  by  that  teaching,  but,  in 
so  far  as  the  master  really  informs  his  pupil, 
the  pupil  will  learn  that  he  must  test  the 
teaching  by  his  own  inner  experience.  He 
must  in  some  way  live  what  he  tries  to 
think.  The  experience  of  the  youth  is  in- 
sufficient to  grasp  all  at  once  what  the 
master  tells  out  of  a  mature  and  gracious 
experience.  Therefore  a  good  deal  of  the 
teaching  must  be  stored  in  the  memory 
against  the  day  when  the  intricate  demands 
of  human  life  find  in  the  memory  the  satis- 
faction of  an  adequate  explanation. 


94  THE   MINISTRY 

The  English  theologian,  the  late  Fred- 
erick Dennison  Maurice,  warned  his  disci- 
ples that  they  must  beware  of  becoming 
slaves  to  a  system.  Every  good  teacher 
would  echo  this  counsel.  In  the  manifold 
mysteries  of  life,  there  are  some  things  of 
which  a  thoughtful  man  is,  in  his  own  mind, 
entirely  sure.  He  may  not  be  able  to  con- 
vince other  men  by  cogent  reasons;  his 
authority  may  be  an  intuition  which  is 
beyond  need  of  proof,  so  far  as  he  alone  is 
concerned.  He  reaches  his  conclusions 
partly  by  reason,  partly  by  what  Josiah 
Royce  used  to  call  "appreciation";  how- 
ever won,  these  conclusions  are,  to  him, 
solid  ground.  Beyond  these  fixed  conclu- 
sions there  is  a  vast  area  of  thought  where- 
in he  holds  his  theories  of  life  more  or  less 
as  hypotheses.  The  fundamentals  are  few 
and  substantial.  The  element  of  confes- 
sedly uncertain  theories  may  be  expected 
to  diminish,  as  a  man  grows  in  experience; 
because  the  working  hypothesis  which  he 
has  adopted  for  this  or  that  section  of  life 
becomes  so  satisfactory  in  meeting  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  years  that  he  is  content, 
for   all    practical    purposes,    to    call    them 


THE   PREPARATION  95 

proved.  His  system  therefore  grows  as  he 
himself  grows,  in  knowledge,  in  grace,  in 
the  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  respected  teacher  of  doctrine  be- 
stows on  his  pupil  a  priceless  gift  when  he 
lays  before  him  the  theology  which  he  has 
proved  to  himself  out  of  the  history  of 
thought,  out  of  his  own  reflection,  and  out 
of  his  own  daily  life.  The  pupil  sees  what 
are  the  elder  man's  convictions.  Like  St. 
Paul,  the  master  says,  ''This  have  I  re- 
ceived: of  this  I  am  sure."  Like  St.  Paul, 
he  says  again,  "Now  see  we  through  a 
glass  darkly:  of  this  I  await  the  full  knowl- 
edge." Under  such  inspiration  the  callow 
youth  begins  to  build,  fearlessly  and  hope- 
fully, his  own  theology.  Its  loyalty  to  the 
past  includes  the  command  that  he  prove 
all  things  to  his  own  honesty.  So,  when 
the  time  comes  for  him  to  preach,  he  shall 
bring  forth  from  his  own  mind  doctrines 
which  really  belong  to  him;  and  men,  look- 
ing into  his  clear  eyes,  shall  say,  ''That  man 
believes  with  all  his  life  what  he  utters 
with  his  lips." 

There  may  be  young  men  who  fancy 
that  if  they  go  to  a  theological  school  they 


96  THE   MINISTRY 

will  be  taught  a  hard-and-fast  system  of 
thought,  which  will  be  so  precise  that  all 
they  need  do  in  the  future  is  to  repeat  it, 
word  for  word,  like  the  multiplication  table. 
To  the  indolent  and  careless  this  may  be  a 
comforting  expectation.  To  the  conscien- 
tious and  painstaking  it  will  be  a  night- 
mare. The  facts  of  Christianity  are  printed 
large  on  the  page  of  history.  The  applica- 
tion and  interpretation  of  those  facts  are, 
of  necessity,  as  varied  as  human  nature  is 
varied.  There  is  no  greater  doctrine  than 
the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement;  but  this 
doctrine  varies  with  the  light  which  the 
Holy  Spirit  has  revealed  to  saints  and  phil- 
osophers in  succeeding  periods.  The  dili- 
gent student  receives  help  from  all  these 
thoughtful  men  in  the  past,  in  so  far  as  he 
is  able  to  study  them,  but  his  own  doctrine 
cannot  be  a  copy  of  any  one  of  them. 
Through  all  of  them  the  Spirit  speaks  to 
him,  and  then  the  Spirit  of  God  tells  him, 
as  he  awaits  the  sound  of  His  Voice,  the 
truth  for  him  alone. 

Every  earnest  layman  builds  up  his  own 
theology,  even  though  he  might  call  him- 
self an  unbeliever.     It  does  not  make  much 


THE   PREPARATION  97 

difference  to  his  neighbors  if  the  layman  is 
not  able  to  tell  his  convictions ;  but  it  makes 
a  tremendous  difference  to  the  inquiring 
neighbors  if  a  clergyman  is  not  able,  in 
some  dire  calamity  which  has  fallen  upon 
them,  to  assure  them  of  an  interpretation 
which  is  based  on  interior  conviction  as  he 
has  lived  and  thought  it  out  in  the  light 
of  his  discipleship  to  Christ.  Those  neigh- 
bors will  instantly  know  whether  a  clergy- 
man is  irreverently  rattling  off  platitudes 
which  were  sound  doctrine  for  the  man  who 
taught  them,  but  which  have  never  be- 
come true  doctrine  to  his  own  experience. 
They  will  know  their  man  when  he  com- 
forts them  with  the  assurance,  ''Of  these 
things  I  am  sure.'*  This  man  has  deep 
within  his  life  a  reasonable  faith. 

An  essential  part  of  a  course  in  a  theo- 
logical school  is  the  technical  preparation 
for  preaching  sermons.  The  essential  prep- 
aration for  preaching  is  all  of  a  man's 
life.  But  unless  a  man  can  make  himself 
clear  and  can  make  himself  heard,  he  can- 
not help  the  people  committed  to  his  care. 
The  structure  of  a  sermon,  its  clearness, 
force,  conciseness,  are  all  of  moment.     Of 


98  THE   MINISTRY 

vital  importance,  too,  is  the  training  of  the 
voice.  Many  able  young  men  despise  the 
teacher  of  elocution;  his  teaching  seems  to 
them  artificial.  No  sane  teacher  of  elocu- 
tion to-day  seeks  anything  but  the  simplest 
art  of  speaking  intelligently.  There  is 
something  wrong  either  with  the  theological 
seminary  or  with  the  pupil  graduating  from 
it,  when  a  man  who  has  spent  three  years 
in  it  cannot  make  himself  heard  distinctly 
in  every  part  of  a  church  where  the  acous- 
tics are  reasonably  good.  Besides  this  he 
should  be  able  to  read  a  chapter  from  the 
Bible  without  embarrassment,  without  stum- 
bling over  a  single  word,  and  with  such 
simple  and  direct  intelligence  that  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  will  be  compelled  to 
listen.  If  any  youth  thinks  that  this  can  be 
accomplished  without  training,  let  him  go 
to  some  city  rector,  ask  to  read  a  chapter 
from  the  Bible  to  him  in  his  church,  and 
prove  to  the  rector  that  he  has  uncon- 
sciously learned  to  do  what  ordinary  mor- 
tals attain  only  with  repeated  effort.  The 
best  sermon  ever  written  is  a  failure  if  the 
people  lose  half  the  words  of  which  it  is 
composed.     There  is  a  technique  to  every 


THE   PREPARATION  99 

profession  as  there  is  a  technique  to  every 
art.  The  man  who  despises  that  technique 
is  as  great  a  fool  as  the  farmer  who  believes 
the  wheels  of  his  wagon  so  well  constructed 
that  he  refuses  to  grease  them.  The  wise 
man  respects  every  aid  which  will  make 
the  best  that  is  within  him  effective  in 
service  to  his  neighbor. 

Joined  closely  to  the  training  in  the  prep- 
aration and  delivery  of  sermons  and  the 
conduct  of  divine  worship,  is  what  is  com- 
monly called  pastoral  care.  In  one  sense 
this  can  be  learned  only  by  experience. 
But  the  wise  teacher  may  tell  what  he  him- 
self has  learned  by  experience  in  a  parish. 
He  may  tell  not  only  his  successes  but  his 
failures.  He  may  familiarize  his  pupils 
with  the  lives  and  guiding  principles  of 
great  pastors.  He  may  reveal  the  human 
soul  in  its  need  and  perplexity,  its  sorrow 
and  its  moral  failure,  its  recovery  and  its 
triumph.  He  may  show  how  a  man,  set 
apart  to  the  divine  task,  may  help  another 
man.  There  is  much  that  no  lips  can 
teach;  there  is  also  much  that  can  be  im- 
parted. A  certain  amount  of  machinery 
must  be  in  the  life  of  the  pastor;  the  move- 


loo  THE   MINISTRY 

ment  of  this  machinery  can  be  taught. 
The  theological  student  will  not  despise  this 
mechanical  knowledge.  Learning  before- 
hand what  can  be  taught  by  another,  he 
will  be  the  more  apt  and  the  more  free  to 
learn  what  only  God  can  teach  him  when 
he  comes  face  to  face  with  the  baffling 
mysteries  of  human  life. 

If  possible,  a  man,  while  in  the  theolog- 
ical school,  should  serve  a  little  parish  or 
mission  in  some  capacity.  He  may  not 
take  much  time  from  his  studies;  for  study 
is  now  his  chief  duty.  His  ultimate  useful- 
ness will  be  greater  if  only  his  Sundays  are 
given  to  this  practical  service.  He  may 
teach  in  a  Sunday-school;  he  may  conduct 
divine  worship ;  he  may  either  read  another's 
sermons  or,  if  permitted  by  authority,  make 
his  own  addresses.  In  any  case  he  will  be 
coming  in  contact  with  people  in  some  such 
fashion  as  he  will  meet  them  in  his  regular 
ministry;  and  so  he  will  have  a  taste  of 
what  the  work  ahead  is  to  be.  The  slight 
experience  he  can  gain  will  open  his  mind 
towards  the  questions  he  may  now  ask 
his  trusted  instructors  in  the  school.  The 
work    of    the    classroom   will   cease   to   be 


THE   PREPARATION  loi 

academic.  He  will  begin  to  apply  every- 
thing he  learns  to  the  needs  which  he  has 
observed  in  his  quasi  parishioners. 

Such  mission  work  has  often  been  of  dis- 
tinct advantage  to  a  man.  It  has  also  at 
times  been  a  man's  undoing.  Now  and 
then  a  student  feels  that  the  parish  or  mis- 
sion he  chances  to  serve  is  all  in  all,  and  the 
theological  school  is  only  a  necessary  nui- 
sance which  conventional  authorities  require 
of  him.  He  may  become  vain  of  his  easy 
success.  He  may  scorn  hard  work  and  de- 
cent preparation.  He  may  give  his  eve- 
nings to  pleasant  visits,  and  so  neglect  his 
books;  thus  he  may  come  to  the  day  of  his 
ordination  with  only  superficial  acquire- 
ment; the  foundation  may  be  so  weak  that 
no  solid  structure  can  be  built  upon  it.  Be- 
cause of  such  discouraging  folly,  many  a 
theological  professor  has  warned  all  stu- 
dents to  decline  invitations  to  pastoral  ex- 
periment while  the  theological  course  is 
unfinished.  Their  warnings  are  valid;  un- 
less a  man  can  prove  to  them  that  he  can 
keep  his  academic  work  up  to  its  best,  while 
making  his  first  timid  efforts  to  put  his 
learning   into   practice.     Keeping   in   mind 


102  THE   MINISTRY 

the  risks,  and  seeking  to  reduce  them  to  a 
minimum,  every  student  of  theology  will 
endeavor  to  yield  himself  to  a  course  in  the 
practical  work  of  a  pastor  in  some  small 
parish  or  mission.  There  is  distinct  ad- 
vantage for  his  training  in  this  early  taste 
of  what  is  to  come. 

In  addition  to  these  fundamental  courses 
in  a  theological  school  are  a  number  of 
courses  from  which  one  may  rightly  choose 
the  course  or  courses  which  most  appeal  to 
one's  enthusiasm  and  ability.  Sociology  is 
fast  becoming  a  science.  A  great  deal  can 
be  learned  from  the  master  of  sociology. 
Though  the  Christian  ministry  is  first  of 
all  interested  in  the  subjects  of  the  king- 
dom, yet  through  advancing  the  character 
and  power  of  these  subjects  it  must  build 
up  the  kingdom  as  a  whole.  It  may  have 
no  ambitious  dream  that  it  can  in  some 
way  contrive  a  wholesale  method  by  which 
the  kingdom  shall  grow;  yet,  little  by  little, 
without  observation,  the  leaven  will  spread 
till  the  whole  is  leavened.  The  Church 
needs  to  know  all  that  the  master  of  sociol- 
ogy can  teach;  sometimes  to  sympathize 
and  appropriate  the  teaching;  sometimes  to 


THE   PREPARATION  103 

criticise  it.  Never  let  the  social  worker 
believe  that  the  Christian  pastor  is  not  in- 
terested, and  deeply  interested,  in  the  im- 
provement of  the  social  organism.  He  is 
not  content  to  see  his  poor  parishioners 
ground  down  by  unjust  wages  or  by  the 
tyranny  of  an  unscrupulous  union.  He 
will  fight  in  conjunction  with  every  decent 
committee  which  pleads  for  liberty  of  chil- 
dren, when  greedy  employers  or  thoughtless 
parents  would  shut  up  their  growing  lives  in 
cheap  factories.  But,  while  he  is  doing  all 
this  work  for  the  mass  of  humanity  he  will 
know  that  his  immediate  duty  must  always 
be  to  John  who  is  selfish,  or  to  Mary  who 
is  oppressed,  or  to  their  child  who  is  for- 
gotten. The  golden  age  is  coming  only  so 
far  as  the  leaden  people,  by  some  heavenly 
alchemy,  are  being  changed  to  gold — one 
by  one.  And  that  is  the  Christian  miracle 
which  the  sociological  pastor  of  Christ*s 
Church  is  bidden  to  perform. 

Music  is  of  importance  in  the  Church. 
For  the  most  part  laymen  will  be  respon- 
sible for  it.  But  some  clergymen  ought  to 
be  proficient  in  the  knowledge  of  the  his- 
tory of  music,  that  what  is  best  in  all  music 


104  THE   MINISTRY 

may  be  applied  and  adapted  to  the  worship 
of  the  Church.  As  sociology  should  be  co- 
ordinated with  pastoral  care,  so  music 
should  be  co-ordinated  with  the  liturgical 
instinct  of  the  Church.  The  clergyman 
need  not  be  an  organist  or  a  choirmaster, 
but  his  knowledge  how  best  to  co-operate 
with  an  efficient  organist  and  choirmaster 
will  be  of  mutual  advantage  to  the  two 
men  so  co-operating,  and  to  the  Church 
as  a  whole. 

Whether  or  not  a  man  is  to  be  a  teacher, 
the  diligent  student  can  scarcely  fail  to  be 
interested  in  one  of  the  departments  of 
theological  learning  above  all  the  rest.  If 
he  is  curious  about  the  difficult  doctrines 
of  the  Church,  let  him  take  an  advanced 
course  on  some  specific  truth  such  as  the 
Atonement;  or,  if  he  longs  to  see  more 
exactly  into  some  period  of  history,  let  him 
take  an  advanced  course,  for  instance,  on 
the  rise  of  Monasticism;  or,  if  he  is  im- 
pressed with  the  futility  of  Sunday-schools, 
let  him  seek  a  course  on  scientific  pedagogy. 

More  and  more  the  theological  school  is 
varying  its  curriculum.  To  the  fundamen- 
tal  requirements  it  is  adding  an   inviting 


THE   PREPARATION  105 

array  of  elective  courses  from  which  the 
more  eager  spirits  may  test  their  capacity 
for  original  research.  Thereby  they  have 
the  chance  to  start  upon  some  definite  line 
of  training;  and  then,  being  thus  furnished, 
they  may  go  on  themselves  to  be  creative 
leaders  in  a  special  field.  Without  neglect- 
ing the  necessary  duties  of  a  clergyman, 
they  will  be  authorities  in  certain  depart- 
ments. The  Church  at  large  will  look  to 
them  for  counsel,  for  wisdom,  for  exact 
knowledge. 

So  far  from  being  a  place  where  very  dry 
professors  teach  very  dry  subjects,  the 
modern  theological  school  is  a  scene  abound- 
ing in  life.  It  is  intent  upon  the  truth  as 
revealed  to  men  down  the  ages  in  a  con- 
tinuous stream  of  experience,  as  revealed  to 
men  in  the  movements  of  our  own  day,  as 
revealed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  devout 
individuals  whom  we  know  face  to  face. 
The  modern  theological  school  is  seeking  to 
know  and  to  teach  exactly  the  truth.  But 
it  is  not  content  to  keep  the  truth  laid 
away  in  a  napkin.  The  truth  is  to  be 
carried  out  by  its  students  into  the  life  of 
the  world.     The  truth  is  to  be  put  to  work. 


io6  inE   MINISTRY 

It  is  not  to  be  fought  over,  or  to  be  gloried 
in,  or  to  be  hurled  at  the  heretic.  It  is  to 
be  lived;  and  then  it  is  to  be  so  imparted 
that  men  will  catch  it,  as  children  catch 
the  measles,  and  they  too  will  live  it.  For 
a  university  there  is  no  better  motto  than 
Veritas;  for  a  theological  school  that  motto 
is  insufficient;  it  must  be  Veritas  et  vita.  If 
you  have  learned  in  the  university  to  rev- 
erence truth,  you  will  learn  in  the  the- 
ological school  to  love  it.  You  will  desire 
to  possess  it,  and  then  to  transmit  it  as  a 
living  gift  to  the  whole  world. 


IN  ALL  EXPERIENCE 

Many  valued  clergymen  have  not  been 
prepared  for  the  ministry  in  a  conventional 
way.  They  have  started  out  to  be  business 
men,  or  lawyers,  or  physicians,  or  teachers, 
and  then,  at  some  stage  in  their  preparation, 
or  in  some  early  stage  of  their  active  life, 
they  have  discovered  that  they  were  meant 
for  the  Christian  ministry.  Obviously  they 
will  not  be  expected  to  return  to  their  early 
boyhood   and   begin   again.     With   mature 


THE   PREPARATION  107 

minds  they  will  add  to  what  mental  and 
spiritual  possessions  they  now  have  the 
knowledge  which  the  Church  may  see  fit  to 
demand  of  them  as  a  requisite  for  ordina- 
tion. Often  these  men  of  irregular  prepara- 
tion outstrip  in  usefulness  those  of  us  who 
have  had  a  normal  schooling  for  our  work. 
Several  principles  become  clear  as  we  re- 
flect upon  this  interesting  phenomenon. 

In  the  first  place,  character  is  so  emi- 
nently the  qualification  of  an  effective  minis- 
try that  it  is  comparatively  indifferent  how 
that  character  is  won.  If  a  man  cares  so 
earnestly  for  exact  knowledge  and  for  his 
fellow  men  that  he  is  willing  to  go  through 
the  dif^cult  training  of  a  medical  school  and 
the  additional  training  of  a  hospital,  he  has 
the  same  qualities  of  industry  and  love  to 
bring  to  the  work  of  the  ministry.  If  a 
man  looks  upon  the  law  as  the  expression  of 
justice  and  if  he  longs  to  know  and  practise 
it  that  he  may  bring  justice  to  the  tangled 
and  crooked  ways  of  humanity,  rescuing  the 
oppressed  and  branding  the  oppressor,  he 
has  equally  valuable  traits  to  bring  to  the 
Christian  ministry.  If  a  man  has  been 
scrupulous  in  business  and  sees  that  wealth 


io8  THE   MINISTRY 

is  only  for  the  service  of  the  world  and 
knows  that  money  is  a  possible  symbol  of 
a  man's  interest  and  conscience,  then  he 
can  bring  to  the  ministry  the  high  integrity 
which  not  only  means  to  be  honest  but  is 
honest,  which  not  only  means  to  use  every 
gift  of  the  people  to  its  utmost  worth,  but, 
by  his  economic  knowledge,  does  so  use  it. 
If  a  man  has  experienced  the  joy  of  teach- 
ing, if  he  has  discovered  that  he  has  the 
precious  gift  of  getting  ideas  into  the  minds 
of  youth  so  that  they  both  understand  and 
own  them,  if  he  finds  that  he  desires  to  teach 
not  only  truth  but  living  truth  and  so  comes 
into  the  ministry,  then  every  day  of  his 
teaching  has  accumulated  power  which  now 
he  is  able  to  pour  into  his  preaching  and 
into  every  instruction  and  into  every  con- 
versation, however  informal,  whereby  he  is 
able  to  win  man  after  man,  woman  after 
woman,  child  after  child,  to  the  shining 
truth  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  His 
character  as  a  sound  teacher  is  used  to  the 
inestimable  benefit  of  the  ministry. 

A  further  principle  is  that  the  man  trained 
from  without  the  specific  institutions  pro- 
vided by  the  Church,  often  brings  into  the 


THE   PREPARATION  109 

ministry  as  a  whole  what  the  conventional 
parson  never  could  bring  to  it.  There  are 
professional  duties  which  every  clergyman 
must  do  in  the  most  careful  way  possible 
for  him.  But  a  good  many  clergymen  do 
these  professional  duties  in  a  professional 
way;  they  become  so  familiar  that  they  be- 
come perfunctory.  There  is  often  a  fresh- 
ness about  the  ministrations  of  a  man  who 
is  not  steeped  in  the  theological  atmosphere 
which  brings  to  the  congregation  a  sense  of 
reality  which  is  almost  thrilling.  Phillips 
Brooks  once  said  to  theological  students, 
"Never  get  used  to  funerals."  The  law- 
yers, physicians,  and  teachers  who  come 
into  the  ministry  show  us  what  it  is  for  a 
mature  man  to  minister  for  the  first  time 
in  the  tenderest  relations  of  pastor  and  peo- 
ple. They  make  us  ask  ourselves  whether 
we  may  not  have  become  too  ''used  to 
funerals"  and  other  sacred  moments  of  our 
ministry. 

Still  a  third  principle  coming  out  of  this 
consideration  is  that  there  is  no  knowledge 
thoroughly  acquired,  no  deed  carefully  done, 
which  does  not  contribute  to  the  efficiency 
of  the  ministry.     If  one  has  planted  a  field. 


no  THE   MINISTRY 

or  tended  sheep,  or  sailed  a  ship,  or  felled  a 
tree,  or  built  a  house,  or  set  the  type  of  a 
book,  one  has  in  that  experience  a  delicate 
tool  wherewith  to  touch  the  sympathy  and 
the  affection  of  some  man  whom  one  de- 
sires with  all  one's  heart  and  mind  to  reach. 
Not  through  the  use  of  an  illustration,  not 
through  the  definite  terms  of  a  conversa- 
tion about  farming,  or  grazing,  or  naviga- 
tion, or  forestry,  or  carpentry,  or  printing, 
is  this  sympathy  and  love  kindled;  but 
through  that  more  delicate  understanding 
which  is  created  by  the  brotherhood  of 
those  bound  to  the  same  craft.  The  Su- 
preme Example  of  the  ministry  was  a  car- 
penter. Who  may  say  how  subtly  that  fact 
subconsciously  affected  the  simple  folk  to 
whom  He  spoke  His  words  of  life?  The 
ministry,  of  all  vocations,  most  graciously 
uses  all  that  a  man  has  acquired.  All  life 
is  part  of  its  preparation,  so  far  as  a  man 
may  win  its  experience. 

A  necessary  warning  must  be  added. 
The  knowledge  must  be  real  knowledge, 
whether  gained  by  study  or  by  experience; 
it  may  not  be  superficial  or  untested.  The 
late  Thomas  March  Clark,  one  of  the  most 


THE   PREPARATION  iii 

versatile  and  clever  of  men,  relates  that 
once  when  he  was  in  London  he  thought  to 
gain  the  attention  of  a  congregation  of  dock 
laborers  by  illustrating  his  address  with 
figures  taken  from  ships  and  the  sea.  He 
made  mistakes  in  terms,  and  immediately 
his  hearers  turned  aside  from  all  his  teach- 
ing, because  they  knew  that  he  was  super- 
ficial and  ignorant  in  their  special  depart- 
ment of  knowledge.  In  ways  less  direct 
the  expert  detects  and  despises  the  ama- 
teur. If  the  ministry  is  to  be  helped  by 
men  from  other  walks  in  life  these  men 
must  bring  genuine  experience,  and  there- 
fore exact  knowledge.  Then  their  contri- 
bution will  be  real,  and  their  own  ministry 
will  be  rich. 


VI 

THE  SPECIFIC  OPPORTUNITY 

The  general  opportunity  of  one  who  en- 
ters the  Christian  ministry  is  to  proclaim 
God's  love  for  men  and  to  bring  men,  so 
far  as  one  can,  into  a  worthy  response  to 
that  divine  friendship.  This  means  that 
one  must  be  not  only  religious,  but  actively 
religious.  The  ministry  offers  to  a  religious 
man  the  inestimable  privilege  of  spending 
every  hour  of  the  day  in  the  furtherance  of 
true  religion.  The  ways  in  which  this 
general  purpose  may  be  accomplished  are 
varied.  As  varied  types  of  men  may  find 
in  the  ministry  full  scope  for  their  particu- 
lar traits,  so  varied  tasks  await  men  who 
have  especial  aptitude  for  this  or  that  func- 
tion of  the  ministry.  It  is  well  that  a  man 
see  clearly,  that  he  may  work  out  the  gen- 
eral and  essential  purpose  of  his  vocation 
in  somewhat  narrow  limits  which  bound  a 
field  where  his  toil  will  be  intensely  con- 
genial. 

112 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     113 


PREACHER  AND   PASTOR 

Almost  every  man  who  goes  into  the 
ministry  expects  to  be  the  shepherd  of  a 
flock;  that  is,  to  have  charge  of  a  parish. 
In  large  parishes  some  of  the  clergy  will 
emphasize  the  preaching;  and  others  will 
give  most  of  their  time  to  the  care  of  indi- 
viduals in  some  form  of  pastoral  relation- 
ship. But,  even  in  this  large  field,  where 
to  a  certain  extent  men  will  be  specialists, 
the  preacher  will  also,  just  in  so  far  as  his 
preaching  is  effective,  be  forced  to  be  a 
pastor  to  those  whom  he  has  helped  by  his 
preaching;  and  the  man  who  has  helped 
people  privately  and  personally  will  be 
pleaded  with  to  utter  his  message  in  the 
pulpit.  Of  course  in  the  average  parishes 
over  the  broad  land  the  office  of  preacher 
and  the  office  of  pastor  must  be  combined. 
Whether  necessity  combine  them  or  not, 
they  ought  to  be  combined.  The  greatest 
preacher  whom  our  country  has  known  de- 
clared that,  if  he  could,  he  would  drop 
everything  but  the  pastoral  duties  of  his 


114  THE   MINISTRY 

ministry;  evidently  not  only  did  he  feel 
himself  most  serviceable  when  he  acted  as 
pastor,  but  the  inspiration  of  his  whole 
ministry  was  kindled  by  that  experience. 
We  may  believe  that  the  searching  qualities 
of  his  preaching  came  from  the  revelations 
which  God  gave  him  in  his  pastoral  min- 
istrations. Above  all,  the  Master  who 
preached  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  claimed 
for  Himself  the  title,  the  Good  Shepherd. 

A  man  looking  forward  to  the  ministry 
has  a  right  to  ask  what  would  be  expected 
of  him  if  he  should  give  himself  to  the  paro- 
chial work  of  the  Church.  No  explanation 
is  adequate;  as  one  cannot  describe  music, 
so  one  cannot  describe  the  experience  of  a 
preacher  and  pastor.  Only  the  man  who 
has  experienced  the  response  which  honest 
preaching  and  faithful  shepherding  receive, 
can  know  what  it  is  to  be  either  preacher 
or  pastor. 

To  preach  is  supremely  hard.  Because 
it  makes  severe  demands  upon  a  man's 
industry  and  a  man's  daily  life,  a  man  may 
rightly  suspect  that  it  is  worth  doing.  The 
facile  people  who  tell  a  story,  quote  a 
poem,  and  utter  a  few  platitudes  are  not 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     115 

preachers,  however  they  may  satisfy  the  pa- 
tient congregation.  Real  preaching  comes 
up  out  of  genuine  study  of  God's  ways  in 
the  Bible,  in  history,  in  the  daily  paper,  in 
one's  own  experience,  in  the  lives  of  one's 
flock;  and  one  will  not  fear  dulness  if  one 
may  tell  the  truth.  The  dulness  will  be 
transfigured  as  the  congregation  see  in  the 
preacher's  words  the  vision  of  what  God  is 
revealing  to  their  own  inner  sight.  No 
clever  books  of  illustrations,  no  commen- 
taries framed  for  preachers,  no  pithy  sum- 
maries, will  suffice.  There  must  be  study 
of  God's  Word,  study  of  men's  thoughts, 
study  of  human  life  at  our  doors.  Men  to 
preach  must  work  with  all  their  might. 

The  preachers  who  move  men  assure  us 
that  their  task  never  becomes  easy.  "I 
sweat  blood  every  time  I  preach,"  was  the 
testimony  of  a  modern  preacher.  And  an- 
other has  said,  "After  each  sermon  I  think 
I  never  can  preach  again."  These  wit- 
nesses to  the  difficulty  of  preaching  ought 
to  stimulate  us,  not  discourage  us.  The 
work  of  preaching  is  so  hard  that  it  inspires 
respect.  A  task  worthy  of  all  the  capacity 
of   a   man,   actually   and   potentially,    is   a 


ii6  THE   MINISTRY 

task  which  a  sturdy  and  venturesome  man 
will  desire  to  undertake.  It  calls  upon  him 
for  all  that  is  best  in  him;  it  will  keep  him 
at  his  best. 

Moreover,  no  preacher  who  is  worthy  of 
the  name  will  have  any  other  judge  before 
the  eyes  of  his  imagination  than  the  Lord 
God.  A  sane  man  will  have  due  reverence 
for  the  word  which  God  speaks  to  devout 
laymen  in  his  parish.  He  will  not  be  so 
self-centred  as  to  believe  that  God  reveals 
His  truth  exclusively  to  him.  But  when, 
after  due  consideration,  he  is  sure  that  the 
truth  which  God  has  told  him  is  certainly 
the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth, 
then  he  is  bound  to  declare  it  whatever  the 
unfavorable  reaction  of  the  congregation 
for  the  time  being.  In  the  long  run  no  hon- 
orable congregation  really  desires  to  listen 
to  a  preacher  who  consults  their  prejudices, 
or  preconceptions,  or  inadequate  reason- 
ings. A  layman  of  robust  faith  knows 
how  little  of  the  truth  filters  through  the 
mind  of  a  single  child  of  God;  he  knows 
that  his  experience  must  be  supplemented 
by  that  of  others;  and  when  the  preacher 
who  tries  to  know  the  experience  of  many 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     117 

souls  with  whom  he  has  fairly  intimate 
association,  tells  what  he  has  discovered, 
the  layman  expects  him  to  say  more  than 
will  be  the  mere  reflection  of  his  individual 
experience.  If  a  preacher  is  the  shepherd 
of  his  flock,  if  he  is  known  to  them  as  an 
honest  man  striving  to  obey  God  and  God 
only,  he  receives  surprising  trust  from  his 
congregation.  The  opportunities  for  mar- 
tyrdom are  not  so  numerous  as  the  enthusi- 
ast often  desires.  Good  men,  after  all, 
want  a  leader  more  than  a  reflector.  They 
will  shake  their  heads  and  disagree  time 
and  again.  And  they  have  a  right  to  their 
private  judgment;  for  often  they  know 
more,  and  have  lived  more  deeply,  than  the 
preacher.  But  they  would  not  darken  his 
counsel  with  their  own  limited  knowledge. 
They  want  him  to  speak  out  boldly  the 
truth  as  he  believes  that  he  has  received  it 
from  God. 

Here  again  is  alluring  inducement  to  be 
a  preacher.  The  sneering  comment  of 
some  that  Christian  preachers  say  only 
what  they  are  paid  to  say,  dies  on  lying 
lips.  To  stand  up  with  the  consciousness 
that  one  is  saying  in  one*s  heart  the  prefa- 


ii8  THE   MINISTRY 

tory  words,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  sug- 
gests a  startling  responsibility  for  modesty, 
respect  for  others'  convictions,  and  confi- 
dence towards  God;  and  it  gives  a  man  at 
least  a  glimpse  of  what  it  is  to  be  called  to 
preach  the  Gospel.  No  king,  no  ruler  of 
any  sort,  has  so  high  a  function  as  he. 

With  the  office  of  preacher  is  wrapped 
up  the  office  of  pastor.  The  two  offices 
cannot  be  separated.  The  preaching  will 
be  interpreted  and  understood  according  as 
the  man  in  the  pew  knows  his  dear  friend 
who  stands  in  the  pulpit.  For  he  does  not 
know  him  chiefly  in  the  pulpit.  It  was  this 
preacher  who  came  to  him  when  his  child 
was  at  the  point  of  death;  he  prayed  the 
prayers  the  poor  anxious  parents  had  not 
courage  to  pray.  It  was  this  preacher  who 
went  out  to  find  the  wayward  boy,  ex- 
plained the  love  of  the  father  and  the  moth- 
er, and  brought  him  home  to  their  arms. 
It  was  this  preacher  who  stayed  the  flagging 
spirits  of  the  father  of  the  house  when  he 
was  called  upon  to  pass  through  a  galling 
fire  of  criticism,  till  his  righteousness  was 
made  clear  to  the  enemy.  It  was  this 
preacher  who  came  in  the  black  hour  of 


THE  SPECIFIC  OPPORTUNITY     119 

bereavement,  and  by  word  and  prayer 
brought  into  the  darkness  the  Everlast- 
ing Light.  The  stranger  marvels  because 
this  man's  sermons  are  heard  with  a  hush 
upon  the  whole  congregation.  The  stranger 
little  knows  the  excellent  living  quality 
which  vibrates  through  all  the  simple  sen- 
tences. The  sheep  belong  to  the  shepherd: 
he  knows  his  sheep  and  calls  them  by  name. 
And  the  sheep  know  the  shepherd's  voice: 
they  look  up  and  they  are  fed. 

I  once  heard  an  English  vicar  complain 
that,  though  many  people  in  the  bounds  of 
his  parish  did  not  come  to  his  parish  church, 
these  same  absentees  expected  him  to  bap- 
tize their  children  and  to  bury  their  dead, 
and  he  wished  to  be  rid  of  them.  It  was 
the  strange  illustration  of  the  conventional 
hardness  which  may  spring  up  in  a  State 
Church.  I  believe  that  this  lament  is  not 
characteristic  of  the  English  Church;  but, 
in  any  case,  one  sees  here  the  sign  that  a 
man  with  a  noble  privilege  may  fall  under 
Christ's  awful  indictment :  he  is  a  thief  and 
no  shepherd.  The  Good  Shepherd  is  al- 
ways going  out  for  the  one  lost  sheep,  leav- 
ing, if  need  be,  the  ninety-and-nine  which 


I20  THE   MINISTRY 

are  safe.  The  pastor  whose  preaching  is 
the  preaching  of  the  Good  Shepherd  makes 
clear  his  longing  to  serve  just  as  many  souls 
as  shall  turn  to  him,  whatever  the  emer- 
gency, however  long  their  neglect  of  him 
and  his  ministrations. 

If  a  man  becomes  a  real  pastor  in  his 
community,  his  church  will  not  hold  all 
the  people  he  visits,  if  by  some  miracle 
they  all  bethink  them  to  come  to  divine 
service  on  a  given  Sunday  morning.  Some 
of  these  may  be  children  of  devout  church- 
goers; they  complain  that  they  went  to 
church  too  often  in  their  youth,  or  they 
must  take  their  own  children  to  the  coun- 
try, or  churchgoing  doesn't  help  them. 
Yet  the  pastor  counts  them  of  his  flock. 
He  remembers  that  subconsciously  the  rev- 
erence of  their  parents  is  in  them;  the  time 
will  come  when  the  world  will  not  satisfy. 
He  knows  that  sickness,  failure,  sorrow 
will  certainly  visit  them;  and  they  will  in 
agony  cry  out  to  God.  Even  if  they  deem 
a  clergyman,  and  church,  and  baptisms 
and  funerals  outworn  conventions,  they 
will  desire  respect  and  order  for  their  be- 
loved.    If   one   comes   in   the   bitter   hour 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     121 

who  is  a  stranger,  there  is  risk  that  the 
comfort  will  fall  short.  If  one  comes  who 
is  known  to  them  as  a  faithful  pastor, 
perhaps  even  a  friend,  his  words  will  be 
weighted  with  the  simple  conviction  that 
they  are  not  perfunctory,  but  are  spoken 
by  one  who  truly  cares.  The  strayed  sheep 
knows  the  voice  of  the  good  shepherd.  He 
is  no  stranger.  They  look  up  and  are  fed. 
Then  there  are  the  reliable  parishioners 
in  every  parish  who  may  be  called  the  saints. 
The  pastor  knows  that  they  are  better  than 
himself;  he  sits  at  their  feet  to  learn.  What 
need,  he  says  to  himself,  have  they  of  him  ? 
A  pastor  has  a  duty  to  these;  he  stands  in 
an  official  relationship.  He  is  not  simply 
himself;  he  is  the  embodiment  of  all  the 
pastors  whom  the  parish  has  had.  In  some 
way  he  is  permitted  to  bring  within  himself, 
if  he  be  loyal  and  self-forgetting,  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Good  Shepherd,  the  Master  of 
us  all.  He  may  tell  of  the  work  the  parish 
and  the  Church  at  large  are  trying  to  do. 
Questions  may  be  asked  about  parochial 
administration  which  cannot  be  answered 
in  sermon  or  in  year-book  or  in  parish 
paper.     To  know  that  the   pastor,   old   or 


122  THE   MINISTRY 

young,  does  not  forget,  that  he  longs  to 
serve,  that  he  has  imagination  to  suspect 
loneliness,  that  he  is  glad  to  bring  the 
Church  to  the  parishioner,  is  to  that  faith- 
ful parishioner  the  assurance  that  the  par- 
ish has  personality  and  life.  He  will  fre- 
quently provide  opportunity  that,  when  his 
parishioners  would  lift  up  their  hearts,  they 
may  join  him  in  the  great  Feast  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  there  to  receive  anew  the 
conscious  reality  of  a  fellowship  which  binds 
them  together  in  the  living  Christ.  And, 
when  by  reason  of  age  or  infirmity,  a  par- 
ishioner cannot  come  to  church,  the  pastor 
will  administer  the  Sacrament  in  the  home, 
that  the  pledges  of  God's  love  may  reach 
the  feeblest  and  the  most  unfortunate. 
Many  a  sick-room  becomes  glorious  in  the 
depth  of  the  devotion  of  the  two  or  three 
people  gathered  there:  their  hearts  burn 
within  them,  their  eyes  are  opened,  and 
Christ  is  known  of  them  in  the  breaking  of 
the  bread. 

Nor  is  the  relationship  of  a  good  shep- 
herd to  a  flock  more  advantageous  to  the 
flock  than  to  the  pastor  himself.  When  a 
rector  had  resigned  one  parish  and  had  come 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     123 

to  another,  he  was  visited  by  an  attractive 
young  college  graduate  who  had  an  impor- 
tant position  on  a  great  daily  newspaper. 
The  journalist  said:  "Aren't  you  lonely? 
IVe  been  here  a  year  in  this  cold  New  Eng- 
land city,  and  I  haven't  a  friend."  The 
clergyman  replied:  "I've  been  in  this  warm- 
hearted New  England  city  less  than  a  week, 
and  my  friends  are  so  many  that  I  can't 
count  them.  My  parishioners  had  an  old 
rector  who  was  here  for  twenty-seven  years. 
They  loved  him  as  their  dear  friend.  They 
are  good  enough  to  begin  with  me  where 
they  left  off  with  him.  They  take  me  for 
granted." 

No  words  can  quite  tell  what  the  rela- 
tionship of  a  pastor  is  to  his  congregation. 
It  is,  at  its  best,  something  more  than  the 
relationship  of  friend  to  friend.  There  is 
ownership  in  it.  It  is  akin  to  blood  rela- 
tionship. If  the  pastor  is  old,  like  Doctor 
Lavender  in  Mrs.  Deland's  stories,  he  is  as 
a  father.  If  he  is  young,  like  the  Dominie 
of  Drumtochty,  and  the  parishioner  is  old, 
he  is  like  a  son.  If  he  is  approximately  the 
same  age  as  the  parishioner,  he  is  as  a 
brother,   to   protect   one,   to   help   one,   to 


124  THE   MINISTRY 

share  the  burden  as  it  falls.  To  little  chil- 
dren he  may  stand  with  their  parents  as 
one  of  the  guardians  and  lovers  of  their  un- 
folding life. 

The  ideal  is  always  far  ahead  of  the 
preacher  and  pastor.  He  is  never  properly 
satisfied  with  his  work.  But  he  knows  that 
it  is  worth  all  the  energy  and  devotion  he 
can  put  into  it.  And  he  knows  that  the 
joy  of  it  is  beyond  all  reckoning. 

II 

A  TEACHER  OF  THEOLOGY 

Long  ago  theological  teachers  in  our 
schools  were  elected  by  benevolent  laymen 
who  sought  for  their  beloved  pastors  some 
less  strenuous  career  as  they  failed  in 
strength.  But  now  for  many  years  our 
theological  schools  have  been  taught  by 
men  who  have  not  been  thus  amiably 
chosen  for  the  sake  of  the  professors;  they 
are  taught  by  men  who  have  been  defi- 
nitely trained  for  the  chairs  to  which  they 
have  been  called.  Occasionally  men  from 
parochial  life  with  scholarly  tastes  have  be- 
come teachers  in  our  seminaries.     But  the 


THE   SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     125 

best  men,  as  a  rule,  have  been  the  teachers 
who  from  their  own  student  days  have  de- 
termined to  fit  themselves  to  teach  theology. 
Perhaps  they  have  gone  abroad  to  study  in 
Oxford,  Cambridge,  Gottingen,  or  Berlin. 
Certainly  they  have  kept  up  hard  reading 
in  their  own  chosen  fields.  The  schools 
from  which  they  have  come  have  watched 
them  while  in  some  parochial  experience 
they  have  sought  contact  with  human  life, 
and  have  summoned  them  at  the  first  op- 
portunity to  the  teaching  force  of  the 
schools.  There  is  place  in  the  ministry 
for  the  man  who  is  not  moved  to  be  a 
preacher  or  a  pastor,  but  who  wishes  to  in- 
vestigate the  foundations  upon  which  our 
reasonable  religious  convictions  rest  and  to 
impart  the  confidence  which  he  acquires  to 
others.  The  need  for  such  a  man  is  more 
evident  to-day  than  ever  before.  When  all 
branches  of  learning  seek  more  thoroughly 
equipped  teachers,  theology  shall  not  be  re- 
moved from  its  place  in  the  front  lines. 

The  approach  to  theological  learning  is 
clear.  In  college  or  in  the  theological 
school  the  student  may  find  himself  grow- 
ing more  and   more  interested  in  one  de- 


126  THE   MINISTRY 

partment  or  another.  He  may  have  the 
philosophic  mind,  whereby  he  may  find  his 
approach  through  the  problems  of  theology. 
He  may  have  the  human  instinct  by  which 
he  recognizes  that  in  no  nation  or  peo- 
ple has  God  left  himself  without  witness. 
Thereby  he  would  approach  his  problem 
through  a  life  study  of  comparative  relig- 
ions. He  may  have  that  combination  of 
reverence  and  critical  freedom  by  which  he 
will  desire  to  spend  his  life  upon  the  knowl- 
edge and  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment or  of  the  New.  Still  again,  he  may 
be  so  absorbed  in  the  study  of  Church  his- 
tory that  he  will  seek  to  penetrate  to  all  the 
knowledge  which  the  sources  can  give  him, 
and  then  he  will  desire  to  study  the  inter- 
pretation which  historians  have  made  to 
the  well-attested  facts. 

The  student,  convinced  that  he  wishes  to 
be  a  teacher,  may  feel  no  compulsion  at  the 
beginning  of  his  course  to  select  his  depart- 
ment. That  will  come  with  a  growing 
knowledge  of  what  the  various  possibilities 
contain.  A  teacher  of  great  learning  and 
magnetism  may  inspire  him.  This  teacher 
may  become  his  master.     Naturally  his  de- 


THE  SPECIFIC  OPPORTUNITY     127 

partment  will  seem  to  him  vastly  impor- 
tant. Or,  he  may  have  native  gifts  which 
the  faculty  of  the  school  will  decide  amount 
to  genius;  and  the  whole  faculty  will  urge 
him  to  give  himself  to  the  cultivation  of 
those  gifts. 

Besides  teaching,  the  man  who  becomes 
an  expert  in  any  branch  of  theological 
learning  has  the  obligation  laid  upon  him 
to  write  books.  Our  theological  schools 
should  be  more  amply  manned,  so  that  the 
professors  should  not  find  their  strength 
completely  used  in  the  classroom.  They 
should  have  leisure  not  only  for  indepen- 
dent research  but  for  making,  through 
books,  permanent  contributions  to  theo- 
logical learning.  Too  long  America  has 
depended  upon  English  and  other  foreign 
scholars  for  its  books  of  theology;  or  at 
least  for  too  large  a  proportion  of  them. 
Each  nation  has  qualities  which  make  a 
medium  for  theological  thought.  Through 
this  national  medium,  American  theologians 
ought  to  be  speaking  to  American  scholars, 
and  to  other  American  people  who,  though 
not  scholars,  are  thoughtful  and  willing  to 
learn.     The  man  who  writes  a  book  with 


128  THE   MINISTRY 

the  individual  reader  in  mind,  who  aims  to 
clarify  and  enlarge  his  thought  and  to  en- 
lighten his  life,  is  close  to  the  Good  Shep- 
herd who  is  seeking  the  sheep  gone  astray. 

Just  what  department  the  enthusiast  shall 
ultimately  select  is  at  first  indifferent.  The 
general  foundation  for  the  teacher  must  be 
laid  broadly.  He  would  wisely  not  begin 
to  specialize  too  early.  A  teacher  of  the- 
ology must  know  the  details  of  biblical 
criticism  and  interpretation.  The  teacher 
of  Church  history  must  know  the  terms  and 
principles  of  philosophy,  as  history  reveals 
the  succession  of  theories  and  systems. 
The  teacher  who  would  interpret  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  must  know  well  the  his- 
tory of  secular  institutions  and  movements. 
Every  branch  of  learning  suffers  from  a  too 
early  and  complete  specialization;  but  prob- 
ably no  branch  of  learning  suffers  so  much 
as  theological  investigation.  That  which 
brings  truth  into  human  relationships  must 
touch  human  thought  and  human  life  at 
just  as  many  points  as  possible.  As  God 
touches  life  at  every  point,  so  to  know  God 
we  must  be  conscious  of  the  boundless  life 
which  is  His. 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     129 
III 

A  MASTER  IN  A  CHURCH  SCHOOL  FOR  BOYS 

There  are  other  specific  functions  that 
the  ministry  might  cultivate,  as  institutions 
multiply  which  need  in  certain  posts  men 
who  are  not  only  trained  in  the  specific  sub- 
ject for  which  each  institution  stands,  but 
are  also  trained  in  the  duties  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry. 

In  America,  as  in  England,  we  know  the 
value  of  a  fully  equipped  clergyman  at  the 
head  of  a  Church  boarding-school  (called 
in  England  a  public  school),  and  we  know 
that  there  is  great  gain  if  some  of  the  assis- 
tant masters  also  are  clergymen.  These 
schools  have  proved  so  potent  in  training 
robust  and  honorable  manhood,  that  they 
will  certainly  be  multiplied  in  the  next  few 
years.  Thus  far  in  this  country  too  few 
of  these  schools  have  been  sufficiently  en- 
dowed; so  that  with  rare  exceptions,  only 
the  well-to-do  can  send  their  sons  to  them. 
Generous  benefactors  will  doubtless  make 
it  possible  for  fees  so  to  be  reduced  that 
able  professional  men  (and  other  cultivated 


130  THE   MINISTRY 

people)  with  narrow  incomes  can  send  their 
boys  to  the  best  schools  in  the  country. 
This  means  a  significant  opportunity  for  in- 
tensive training  in  the  ministry,  whereby 
we  may  look  for  distinguished  schoolmas- 
ters who  are  also  clergymen. 

How  high  this  specific  vocation  within 
the  ministry  may  and  does  become,  one 
sees  from  these  words  which,  in  one  of  his 
books,  Mr.  Wells  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a 
schoolmaster: 

I  have  had  dull  boys  and  intractable  boys, 
but  nearly  all  have  gone  into  the  world  gen- 
tlemen, broad-minded,  good-mannered,  under- 
standing and  unselfish,  masters  of  self,  servants 
of  man,  because  the  whole  scheme  of  their 
education  has  been  to  release  them  from  base 
and  narrow  things. 

The  earnest  schoolmaster  is  always  close 
to  the  ideals  of  the  ministry.  We  find  a 
fruitful  life  when  the  ideals  of  the  two  pro- 
fessions are  fused  In  one  man. 

We  are  beginning,  in  America,  to  have 
choristers'  schools  connected  with  the  foun- 
dations of  a  few  great  parishes  and  one  or 
two  cathedrals.     Occasionally  a  man  with 


THE  SPECIFIC  OPPORTUNITY     131 

ability  in  music  is  drawn  towards  the  min- 
istry, but  he  is  not  sure  that  he  could  still 
use  music  as  an  avocation  while  being  first 
of  all  a  minister.  It  is  quite  likely  that 
there  will  be  an  increasing  demand  for  such 
enthusiasts  in  the  ranks  of  the  ministry, 
as  existing  choristers'  schools  expand  and 
others  are  established.  If  it  is  desirable 
that  the  headmaster  of  a  school  like  Groton, 
St.  Paul's,  or  St.  Marks  be  an  executive 
clergyman,  it  may  be  that  a  headmaster 
who  has  the  instinct  of  a  pastor  and  such 
knowledge  of  music  that  he  will  intelli- 
gently co-operate  with  the  organist  and 
choirmaster,  will  be  sought  for  our  best 
schools  for  choristers.  But  such  a  man 
cannot  be  chosen  in  any  haphazard  fashion ; 
he  must  be  a  man  first  with  the  requisite 
enthusiasm,  and  then  with  the  patience  to 
equip  himself  for  this  difficult  combination 
of  duties. 

IV 

AN  EXPERT  IN  SOCIAL  AMELIORATION 

As  youth  feels  the  possibility  of  improv- 
ing social  conditions,  youth  will  desire  to 
make  the  Church  a  servant  to  the  oppressed 


132  THE   MINISTRY 

and  forlorn.  As  the  work  of  the  Church 
grows  more  complex,  the  Church  will  desire 
to  have  within  its  ministry  experts  who  can 
wisely  and  efficiently  make  the  Church  a 
servant  to  the  many.  There  is  room  to- 
day for  the  expert  in  social  amelioration  in 
the  leadership  of  the  Church. 

In  times  of  change  and  unrest  two  dan- 
gerous classes  manifest  themselves  in  the 
Church;  the  radical  who  talks  wildly  and 
with  insufficient  knowledge;  and  the  selfish 
conservative  who  pleads  that  the  old  order 
be  maintained  at  least  till  he  dies.  The 
clergyman  who  has  merely  a  sympathetic 
interest  in  philanthropic  problems  is  not 
sufficiently  furnished  with  knowledge  and 
experience  to  guide  two  such  opposing 
groups  as  these.  Laymen,  of  course,  could 
do  much  to  relieve  the  pressure.  But  in  a 
department  of  the  Church  likely  to  become 
so  compelling  as  this,  there  must  also  be 
leadership  from  the  ministry  which  can  in 
some  gracious  way  relate  this  seemingly 
secular  problem  with  the  larger  and  more 
comprehensive  plan  of  God's  leadership  of 
men  through  history,  as  patient  men  have 
been  able  to  discover  it.     There  must  be 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     133 

at  least  some  clergymen  who  will  know 
enough  as  experts  to  be  respected  both 
within  and  without  the  Church. 

Foreign  peoples  coming  in  large  numbers 
to  our  shores  often  throw  aside  the  religious 
sanctions  which  conventionally  surrounded 
them  in  their  old  home.  The  Church  in 
America  in  one  or  more  of  its  Communions 
finds  itself  confronted  with  an  insistent  de- 
mand to  serve  this  drifting  multitude.  To 
recognize  valuable  traits  in  the  old  life,  to 
discern  undesirable  elements,  to  prepare 
both  the  new  and  the  old  neighbors  for 
assimilation  and  fusion  into  a  stronger 
American  character — all  this  requires  skill. 
Patient  workers  in  our  huge  cities  are  gain- 
ing from  experience  a  fund  of  knowledge 
which  should  not  be  locked  up  in  one  time 
or  in  one  vicinity,  but  should  be  communi- 
cated to  all  others  who  are  interested,  that 
when  the  experts  of  this  generation  lay 
down  their  work,  nothing  be  lost  and  a 
real  advance  be  made. 

There  is  too  much  that  is  academic  in 
all  our  social  theories.  The  vital  teaching 
must  come  from  the  intelligent  workers 
among   the   people   who   have   both   minds 


134  THE   MINISTRY 

and  hearts  to  interpret  their  years  of  ser- 
vice among  the  poor  and  among  those  who, 
out  of  a  strange  land,  are  finding  their  place 
in  our  American  Republic,  and  in  our  na- 
tional Christianity.  The  theological  stu- 
dent whose  bent  seems  to  be  some  form  of 
sociology,  will  find  that  the  Church  has  a 
welcome  for  his  specific  gifts.  He  will  need 
courage  with  his  sanity,  and  he  will  need 
sanity  with  his  courage.  He  must  know 
how  to  build  up  rather  than  tear  down.  He 
must  bring  God's  children  together  rather 
than  dig  gulfs  between  them.  He  must  add 
to  his  zeal  patience,  and  to  his  patience  love. 
Then  he  will  be  a  prophet  of  the  new  social 
day,  and  all  Christ's  people  will  rejoice  in 
him.  He  will  even  discover  that  the  formal 
and  indispensable  outward  acts  of  the 
Church  express  a  social  unity  which  is 
amazing.  First,  there  is  the  submission  of 
all  classes  of  people  to  the  cleansing  and 
spiritualizing  act  of  Baptism,  whereby  all 
are  made  members  of  one  body;  and  then 
there  is  the  daring  simplicity  of  the  supreme 
service  of  the  Church,  the  Lord's  Supper, 
whereby  worship  becomes  an  act  of  obedi- 
ence   rather    than    a    difficult    intellectual 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     135 

effort,  and  the  high  and  the  low,  the  wise 
and  the  untaught,  equally  and  together  re- 
ceive the  elemental  symbols  instituted  by 
Christ,  and  by  faith  are,  through  them, 
bound  into  a  unity  which  claims  Him  as  the 
^  heart  and  soul,  living  and  breathing  through 
all  their  humanity. 

V 

AN   ADMINISTRATOR 

In  the  Apostolic  Church,  the  Apostles 
found  themselves  so  far  impeded  in  their 
original  work  by  certain  tasks  of  administra- 
tion that  seven  men  were  appointed  to  re- 
lieve them.  The  Church  to-day  is  tending 
to  create  an  order  of  administrators  who 
will  relieve  the  pastors,  preachers,  and 
teachers  of  the  larger  business  problems  of 
the  Church.  There  is  a  tendency  to  ap- 
point many  secretaries  for  Christian  educa- 
tion, social  service,  and  missionary  work. 
At  present  the  Church  is  more  or  less  ham- 
pered by  the  lack  of  training  in  the  many 
excellent  men  who  are  called  to  such  posi- 
tions. Ordinarily  the  man  who  begins  with 
a  fund  of  sound  common  sense  and  devotion 


136  THE   MINISTRY 

is  obliged  to  learn  the  details  of  his  office  by 
a  tedious  and  expensive  experience. 

Because  some  offices  of  administration 
have  attached  to  them  considerable  honor, 
a  student  might  naturally  hesitate  to  an- 
nounce that  he  is  setting  out  to  be  an  ad- 
ministrator. But  shyness  of  this  com- 
mendable sort  is  not  to  be  considered  when 
the  Church  can  point  to  administrator  after 
administrator  in  its  government  who  has  ob- 
viously no  gifts  of  administration  and  is  too 
old  or  too  complacent  to  learn  them.  Men 
who  attempt  to  preside  at  meetings  of  busy 
men,  often  by  irrelevant  stories  and  scatter- 
ing comments  so  dissipate  interest  and  so 
waste  time  that  the  trained  business  man 
despises  the  practical  training  which  the 
Church  gives  its  leaders. 

If  any  man  desires  to  be  an  administrator 
he  desires  a  post  of  usefulness  in  the  Church. 
Whether  his  training  bring  him  to  conspicu- 
ous place  or  keep  him  tied  to  some  obscure 
office,  he  may  rejoice  in  the  genuine  service 
which  he  gives  to  Christian  efficiency,  and 
he  may  set  free  for  preaching  and  teaching 
others  in  the  ministry  whose  abundant  gifts 
may  then  express  themselves  in  the  best 


THE  SPECIFIC   OPPORTUNITY     137 

utterance  and  the  best  books  of  which  they 
are  capable. 

I  spoke  in  a  former  chapter*  of  the  prac- 
tical man  who  would  like  to  come  into  the 
ministry,  but  who  fears  that  his  tempera- 
ment and  ability  are  too  prosaic.  The 
Church  needs  him.  The  laymen  might  ask 
why  a  clergyman  need  be  tangled  in  any 
administration  whatever.  Passing  by  all 
theories,  we  may  observe  that  all  through 
the  history  of  the  Church  the  clergy  have 
been  forced  to  exercise  administration. 
The  laity  may  in  the  future,  to  the  benefit 
of  the  Church,  take  a  much  larger  share  in 
administration ;  but  the  clergy  will  probably 
always  be  required  to  do  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  administrative  ecclesiastical 
offices.  The  clergyman  who  is  thoroughly 
trained  to  administration  knows  how  to 
use  others  advantageously  for  his  own  re- 
lief and  for  the  higher  efficiency  of  the 
work.  The  practical  man  may  take  cour- 
age and  joyfully  enter  the  ministry. 
*  Page  48. 


138  THE  MINISTRY 

VI 

HOW   TO   FIND   one's    PLACE 

How  then  shall  one  find  one's  place? 
The  only  caution  necessary  is  not  to. worry. 
God,  through  a  man's  own  enthusiasm  and 
the  special  need  revealed,  will  show  His 
will  for  His  servant.  The  one  word  of 
positive  counsel  necessary  is  to  be  confi- 
dent. The  particular  task  which  a  man 
most  desires  to  do  is  waiting  for  him  within 
the  variety  and  happiness  of  the  Christian 
ministry. 


VII 

THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY 

A  MAN  wishing  to  make  his  life  useful 
naturally  asks  if  the  profession  which  he  is 
inclined  to  examine  fills  a  genuine  need  in 
the  life  of  his  time.  There  is  always  a 
group  here  or  there  to  contend  that  though 
there  has  been  need  of  a  specific  class  in 
the  past,  that  need  is  no  longer  imperative. 
The  Christian  Scientist  believes  that  the 
time  for  a  physician  is  over.  The  Quaker 
would  have  the  world  get  on  without  an 
ordained  ministry.  The  anarchist  strives 
to  eliminate  the  professional  legislator. 
Others  believe  higher  education  a  menace 
to  the  life  of  the  Spirit.  Still  others  believe 
the  professional  lawyer  a  menace  to  the 
simple  justice  which  in  their  enthusiasm 
they  believe  men  unhampered  by  theories 
would  attain. 

That  the  ministry  and  the  visible  Church 
139 


140  THE   MINISTRY 

seem  to  certain  critics  outworn  is  not 
strange.  These  critics  may  be  among  the 
careless  and  indifferent;  or  they  may  be 
among  the  most  earnest  and  devoted  church- 
goers of  our  day.  They  may  say  that  the 
ministry  and  the  Church  have  not  failed; 
they  have  succeeded  only  too  well.  They 
recall  that  in  their  youth  religion  was  iso- 
lated; they  found  it  in  church  on  Sunday 
morning,  or  in  a  religious  journal.  Now 
they  hear  religious  topics  discussed  in  clubs, 
at  dinners,  in  the  military  camp;  they  find 
in  almost  every  magazine  and  weekly  jour- 
nal sober  and  intelligent  reflection  upon 
religious  and  theological  problems — and  the 
people  not  only  themselves  read  the  arti- 
cles, but  urge  others  to  read  them.  These 
readers,  say  the  critics,  are  the  symbol  of 
the  penetration  of  the  Church  into  all  de- 
partments of  life,  whereby  the  Church  as  a 
separate  institution  becomes  unnecessary. 
The  critics  hope  that  the  Church  will  last 
through  their  day ;  for  they  find  it  singularly 
comforting  when  depressed,  exceptionally 
stimulating  when  hard  tasks  loom  ahead  of 
them,  infinitely  consoling  in  sorrow. 

Obviously  no  one  would  care  to  enter  a 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    141 

profession  which  was  about  to  vanish  from 
men's  necessity.  But  these  outside  critics 
have  insufficient  evidence  that  the  ministry 
is  less  needed  to-day  than  in  the  past.  No 
one  can  tell  what  the  need  of  the  ministry 
is  except  the  man,  who  being  in  the  minis- 
try, knows  at  first-hand  what  demands  are 
made  upon  him.  If  he  lives  a  life  of  lei- 
sure, with  only  himself  to  consider,  very 
likely  the  world  is  about  done  with  the 
ministry  of  his  kind.  But  the  typical  repre- 
sentative of  the  ministry  to-day  has,  as  a 
plain  matter  of  fact,  so  many  demands 
upon  him  that  he  can  do  each  day  only 
part  of  the  tasks  which  individuals  or 
organizations,  in  a  community  or  in  a  wider 
sphere,  implore  him  to  undertake.  He  goes 
to  bed  worried,  not  because  he  has  worked 
hard,  but  because  with  all  his  activity  he 
has  accomplished  only  a  fraction  of  the 
duties  his  willing  mind,  heart,  and  hands 
were  appointed  to  do. 

This  typical  representative  of  the  minis- 
try lives  not  only  in  great  cities,  but  in 
small  towns,  and  in  the  open  country. 
The  place  where  a  man  lives  has  little  to 
do  with  the  fulness  of  his  time.     If  he  has 


142  THE   MINISTRY 

ordinary  ability,  some  vision,  and  a  con- 
science, he  will  see  anywhere  more  that 
ought  to  be  done  than  his  constant  labor 
can  perform.  Of  course  the  personal  quali- 
ties of  a  man  have  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
the  requests  which  come  to  him  for  service. 
But  a  large  part  of  the  demand  centres  in 
the  primary  knowledge  that  he  represents 
the  Christian  ministry;  he  is  known  to  be 
a  man  who  is  set  apart  gladly  to  serve  indi- 
viduals and  causes  chancing  to  be  in  need 
of  help.  That  he  happens  to  be  an  agreea- 
ble, level-headed,  and  energetic  person  illu- 
mines his  office;  but  a  layman  with  the 
same  qualities  would  not  be  in  equal  de- 
mand. The  man  known  by  the  community 
to  be  at  their  service  for  any  help  he  can 
give  is  bound  to  have  a  place  which  no  one 
else  can  fill. 

What  then  are  the  uses  of  the  Christian 
ministry  which  are  quite  as  insistently 
necessary  now  as  in  any  of  the  last  nine- 
teen centuries? 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    143 


IN  THE   COMMUNITY 

James  Russell  Lowell  once  wrote: 

The  worst  kind  of  religion  is  no  religion  at 
all,  and  these  men,  living  in  ease  and  luxury, 
indulging  themselves  in  the  amusement  of  go- 
ing without  a  religion,  may  be  thankful  that 
they  live  in  lands  where  the  Gospel  they  neglect 
has  tamed  the  beastliness  and  ferocity  of  the 
men  who,  but  for  Christianity,  might  long  ago 
have  eaten  their  carcasses  like  the  South  Sea 
Islanders,  or  cut  off  their  heads,  and  tanned 
their  hides,  like  the  monsters  of  the  French 
Revolution.  When  the  microscopic  search  of 
scepticism,  which  has  hunted  the  heavens  and 
sounded  the  seas  to  disprove  the  existence  of  a 
Creator,  has  turned  its  attention  to  human 
society,  and  has  found  a  place  on  this  planet 
ten  miles  square  where  a  man  may  live  in  de- 
cency, comfort,  and  security,  supporting  and 
educating  his  children  unspoiled  and  unpolluted 
— a  place  where  age  is  reverenced,  infancy  re- 
spected, manhood  respected,  womanhood  hon- 
ored, and  human  life  held  in  due  regard, — 
when  sceptics  can  find  such  a  place  ten  miles 
square  on  this  globe,  where  the  Gospel  has  not 


144  THE  MINISTRY 

gone,  and  cleared  the  way  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions and  made  decency  and  security  possible, 
it  will  then  be  in  order  for  the  sceptical  literati 
to  move  thither  and  ventilate  their  views.  So 
long  as  these  men  are  dependent  upon  the  re- 
ligion which  they  disregard  for  every  privilege 
they  enjoy,  they  may  well  hesitate  a  little  before 
they  seek  to  rob  the  Christian  of  his  hope,  and 
humanity  of  faith  in  that  Saviour  who  alone  has 
given  to  man  that  hope  of  life  eternal  which 
makes  life  tolerable  and  society  possible,  and 
robs  death  of  its  terrors  and  the  grave  of  its 
gloom. 

This  eloquent  passage  describes  what  many 
men  would  be  glad  to  say  If  they  could.  In 
general  no  one  would  care  to  live  in  a  com- 
munity where  the  ministry  was  not  func- 
tioning. Let  us  see  in  some  detail  what  are 
the  ministerial  duties  which  every  normal 
community  counts  necessary  for  its  life. 

The  public  worship  of  God  affects  many 
more  than  those  who  regularly  share  in  it. 
Indeed  it  may  be  said  to  affect  even  those 
who  never  are  seen  inside  a  church  door. 
To  have  some  people  who  periodically  join 
In  public  praise,  In  public  prayer,  and  In 
listening  to  public  religious  Instruction  Is 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    145 

to  give  to  any  community  a  certain  tone. 
People  made  conscious  of  God's  presence, 
and  then  living  through  the  week,  con- 
sciously or  subconsciously,  in  that  presence, 
are  as  leaven.  They  communicate  what 
they  have  received  in  ways  which  cannot 
be  analyzed  or  described.  They  are  the 
salt,  the  seasoning,  of  the  community. 
They  may  or  may  not  be  the  most  con- 
spicuous leaders  of  the  community.  The 
general  tone  of  the  community  always  de- 
pends upon  them.  Non-churchgoers  recog- 
nize it  when  they  tell  their  children  that 
they  wish  them  to  go  to  Sunday-school  or 
to  church.  Wise  mill-owners  like  to  have 
churches  near  their  mills,  not  because  it 
makes  the  operatives  content  with  unfair 
conditions  or  inadequate  wages,  but  be- 
cause the  operatives  become  better  people, 
do  better  work,  and  make  the  whole  neigh- 
borhood a  better  neighborhood.  The  tragic 
comedy  of  life  is  revealed  when  a  man  sees 
that  public  worship  helps  others  and  him- 
self neglects  its  opportunity.  But  his  testi- 
mony is  clear  nevertheless.  Probably  few 
towns  in  a  country  nominally  Christian 
have  ever  been  founded  where  the  founders 


146  THE   MINISTRY 

(however  irreligious)  have  not  planned  to 
have  at  least  one  church  with  its  regular 
worship. 

The  conduct  of  public  worship  is  only 
one  of  the  functions  of  the  ministry  which 
the  community  finds  practically  necessary 
to  its  efficient  being.  More  and  more  so- 
cial classes  are  evident.  They  no  longer 
fret  us  when  they  mean  certain  distinctions 
in  what  we  call  social  amenities.  Because 
some  people  are  considered  eligible  for  this 
or  that  interesting  home  or  club,  does  not 
bar  the  others  from  happiness.  There  are 
natural  groups  in  every  community  where 
people  find  congenial  companionship,  and 
there  is  little  to  be  gained  by  shuffling  these 
groups  together  to  make  awkward  situa- 
tions. But  every  community  dreads  lack 
of  sympathy  and  co-operation  in  the  vari- 
ous social  strata  of  its  life.  When  the 
people  who  work  with  their  hands  draw 
aside  and  send  out  ugly  suspicions  against 
those  who  work  with  their  brains;  or,  when 
the  people  with  much  money  fling  angry 
words  against  the  demands  of  those  who 
have  little;  or  when  the  people  south  of  a 
given  street  show  petty  contempt  for  those 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    147 

who  live  north  of  it — then  those  who  care 
for  the  community  have  cause  for  mis- 
giving. The  community  is  flimsy  because 
it  has  divided  intentions  and  divided  affec- 
tions. 

There  is  only  one  profession  or  class  in 
the  community  that  can  weld  together 
these  diverse  elements.  That  profession 
or  class  is  the  Christian  ministry.  The 
ministry  is  pledged,  by  its  Galilean  King, 
at  once  the  simplest  and  the  most  august  of 
leaders,  to  be  a  member  of  every  class.  It 
enters  every  home  with  a  sense  of  comrade- 
ship, ownership,  almost  relationship.  It  is 
unembarrassed  in  a  palace,  it  finds  no  lack 
of  welcome  in  the  tiniest  hut.  In  so  far  as 
the  people  feel  their  possession  in  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  ministry,  they  possess  one 
another.  In  times  of  suspicion,  recrimina- 
tion, hate,  is  it  not  a  high  and  necessary 
function  that  one  profession  should  give 
itself  to  such  amalgamating  power,  that 
the  community  should  be,  at  least  approxi- 
mately, a  mutually  loving  family? 

When  a  house  is  known  to  be  in  distress, 
the  neighbor  sometimes  fears  to  be  accused 
of  intrusion  if  a  call  is  made  and  leading 


148  THE   MINISTRY 

questions  are  asked,  most  of  all  if  help  is 
volunteered.  The  solicitous  neighbor  comes 
to  whisper  his  knowledge  to  one  who  repre- 
sents the  ministry  in  the  town.  He,  it  is 
felt,  can  without  offense,  with  every  assur- 
ance of  success  play  the  friend  in  that  luck- 
less household.  By  such  an  example  we 
see  that  a  normal  community  demands  that 
its  friendship  be  made  so  thorough  that 
there  be  a  profession  within  it  devoted  to 
the  exercise  of  friendship.  The  ministry 
itself  sometimes  smiles  at  what  it  thinks 
the  futility  of  pastoral  calls.  It  speaks  of 
leaving  cards,  and  drinking  tea,  and  wast- 
ing time.  The  community  aware  of  its 
corporate  life  waxes  glad  when  it  sees  the 
parson  going  up  and  down  the  steps  of 
many  houses  of  an  afternoon.  It  knows 
that  friendship  is  going  in  and  out  of  the 
doors.  Perhaps  there  is  no  one  to  receive 
him,  and  only  a  card  will  later  tell  the 
family  that  they  are  graciously  remem- 
bered. Perhaps  some  member  of  the  house 
will  welcome  the  visitor,  but  the  conversa- 
tion may  be  of  only  common  things — 
a  new  picture,  a  new  railway  station,  a 
country    road.     But    friendship    will    have 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    149 

been  in  that  house;  and  in  the  evening 
word  will  be  passed  about  that  the  parson 
called.  He  cares,  every  one  thinks  to  him- 
self; we  like  him;  he  is  our  friend  in  being 
our  pastor.  Nor  is  the  benefit  ended  with 
that  pleasant  and  cordial  feeling.  Dark- 
ness may  come  down  into  that  home. 
Anxiety,  grievous  illness,  death  may  come. 
The  family  will  want  more  than  friendship, 
and  that  something  more  they  will  want  in 
a  friend.  And  they  have  a  friend.  He 
knows  where  they  live.  He  comes  to  see 
them.  He  cares  very  much.  Now  they 
know  instinctively  that  he  will  care  more 
than  ever.  Before  they  have  a  chance  to 
tell  him,  he  is  at  the  door.  He  is  asking  if 
he  may  come  in.  Perhaps  they  have  not 
been  in  church  for  years.  Perhaps  they 
have  outwardly  given  his  work  no  support. 
He  seems  not  to  remember  it.  He  is  theirs, 
and  they  are  his.  All  he  says,  all  he  does, 
is  radiant  with  that  assurance.  He  is  the 
friend  of  the  community — of  every  member 
of  it  for  whom  directly  or  indirectly  he  may 
claim  responsibility.  Never  allow  any  flip- 
pant person  to  tell  you  that  parish  calls 
are  a  nuisance,  that  they  are  superfluous. 


150  THE   MINISTRY 

They  are  often  the  threshold  over  which 
Christ  steps  to  give  strength  and  courage 
to  His  afflicted  brothers. 

The  community  is  not  content  to  allow 
the  ministry  to  be  absorbed  within  paro- 
chial limits.  The  public  schools,  the  hospi- 
tals, the  library,  the  local  government,  all 
claim  his  interest.  Whether  or  not  he  is 
officially  associated  with  these  institutions, 
his  interest  and  influence  are  sought.  His 
knowledge,  his  point  of  view,  his  intimacy 
with  many  people  affected  make  his  judg- 
ment so  valuable  that  the  wise  leader 
counts  it  essential.  By  no  accident,  but 
by  real  service,  the  man  who  has  exercised 
his  ministry  in  a  community  for  twenty 
years  or  so  is  almost  invariably  the  leading 
citizen.  Other  men,  good  and  true,  stand 
about  him,  but  the  community  does  not 
see  how  he  could  be  spared.  Him,  or  some- 
body like  him,  the  community  must  have 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Christian  ministry. 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    151 
II 

IN  THE  NATION 

During  the  war  with  Germany  the  min- 
istry had  a  chance  to  see  what  the  national 
government  thought  of  its  usefulness.  No 
effort  to  move  public  opinion  failed  to  in- 
clude an  appeal  to  the  ministry  to  use  its 
unique  influence.  When  the  Red  Cross 
needed  strong  hands  to  help,  when  the 
Liberty  Loan  needed  trustful  investors, 
when  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion needed  funds  for  its  benevolent  work, 
when  the  homes  whence  soldiers  were 
drafted  needed  encouragement  and  consola- 
tion, the  ministry  was  begged  to  help.  The 
Nation  asked  it. 

Partly  the  reason  why  the  ministry  was 
effective  in  these  appeals  which,  bidden  by 
the  government,  it  gladly  made,  is  that  the 
ministry  was  recognized  to  be  an  indepen- 
dent force,  following  scrupulously  its  con- 
science. In  America  there  is  a  free  Church 
in  a  free  State.  The  Church  is  in  no  way 
subsidized.  Though  an  institution  within 
the   State,   its   allegiance   is   ultimately   to 


152  THE   MINISTRY 

God,  and  to  God  only.  The  State  is  there- 
fore not  calling  upon  a  vassal  to  repeat  its 
commands;  it  is  seeking  the  endorsement 
of  an  institution  which  while  devoutly  loyal 
to  the  Nation  is,  as  a  prophet,  telling  the 
Nation  what  is  for  its  best  and  truest  life. 
In  easy  times  the  Nation  may  not  think 
overmuch  of  the  Church's  judgments;  but 
when  the  great  crisis  comes,  when  the  peo- 
ple must  make  sacrifice  with  righteousness, 
the  Nation  must  have  the  confirmation  of 
its  decrees.  They  must  be  certified  that 
they  are  after  the  will  of  God  as  those  who 
deUberately  try  to  know  His  will  can  con- 
fidently affirm. 

What  is  plain  to  all  in  time  of  crisis,  is 
clear  to  the  wise  at  all  times.  The  Nation 
is  always  in  peril  if  it  lose  its  integrity,  its 
honor.  When  politicians  make  statecraft 
a  byword  and  an  hissing,  when  youth  play 
fast  and  loose  with  moral  sanctions,  when 
narrow  groups  insist  on  rule  or  ruin,  then 
the  Nation  cries  out  to  the  Church  to  save 
it.  The  Nation  knows  what  happened  to 
Assyria,  to  Greece,  to  Rome,  to  Spain.  If 
the  ministry  be  a  feeble  folk,  the  Nation 
would  do  everything  to  make  the  ministry 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    153 

stronger.  It  wants  men  like  Francis,  and 
Wesley,  and  Brooks.  It  wants  them  in 
great  buildings  before  vast  congregations. 
It  wants  their  words  to  be  with  power.  It 
would  have  them  wake  the  sleeping,  arouse 
the  indifferent,  convict  the  selfish  and  the 
wicked,  reform  wild  youth,  frighten  the 
complacent,  reinforce  the  brave,  the  honor- 
able. 

While  we  think  of  great  names  in  the 
past  we  know  that  the  bulk  of  the  work 
has  always  been  done  by — 

The  unknown  good  .  .  .  that  did  their  deed 
And  scorned  to  blot  it  with  a  name. 

Great  names  will  adorn  the  ministry  of  the 
future  as  they  have  glorified  the  ministry  of 
the  past.  But  a  ministry  exalted  in  ob- 
scure comers  of  the  Nation,  doing  faithfully 
its  unknown,  but  difficult  and  necessary 
work,  will  be  the  real  power  which  as  leaven 
will  leaven  the  whole  people,  and  which  as 
salt  will  purify  the  whole  Nation. 

If  you  love  your  country,  you  will  readily 
imagine  how  necessary  is  the  Christian  min- 
istry not  only  to  its  better  life,  but  to  its 


154  THE   MINISTRY 

survival.  A  nation  can  endure  only  so  long 
as  it  knows  its  responsibility  to  God.  And 
that  body  of  men  which  keeps  the  Nation 
thus  mindful  is  the  profession  which  the 
Nation  in  its  sanest  moments  must  know 
to  be  most  necessary  of  all. 

Ill 

IN  WORLD  RELATIONSHIPS 

The  people  in  our  day  are  not  more  anx- 
ious about  the  Nation  than  they  are  about 
the  civilization  of  the  whole  world.  Hav- 
ing shared  the  sacrifice  and  the  sorrow  of  a 
world  war,  we  are  convinced  that  if  civiliza- 
tion apart  from  America  proves  unequal  to 
the  strain  now  being  put  upon  it,  our  own 
dear  country  must  be  swallowed  up  in  the 
universal  crash. 

Any  one  who  diligently  examines  history 
will  know  how  inevitable  it  is  that  the 
Church  and  its  ministry  must  go  on.  When 
Rome  fell  in  410,  what  had  seemed  eternal 
met  destruction,  but  the  great  man  of  his 
age,  stunned  by  the  failure  of  the  City 
of  Man  wrote  an  immortal  book  on  the 
City  of  God.     Again  and   again   the  wise 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    155 

of  the  earth  have  prophesied  the  end  of  the 
Church,  but  it  has  always  come  out  of  the 
blackness  to  proclaim  the  Light  of  the 
World.  Its  Founder  foretold  that  it  could 
not  be  destroyed,  and  every  imaginable 
emergency  has  tested  His  pledge.  By  the 
most  assuring  evidence  we  may  trust  God 
to  use  the  Church  always  to  revive  the  dy- 
ing world. 

The  ministry  accordingly  has  more  than  a 
local,  more  than  a  national  necessity.  Men 
of  high  personal  probity  have  been  knaves 
in  the  Nation;  men  scrupulous  in  national 
honor  have  been  base  in  dealings  with  for- 
eign nations.  Selfishness,  trickery,  mur- 
der, stain  international  relationships  up  to 
our  own  age.  In  so  far  as  the  ministry  of 
the  Church  is  true  to  its  Master,  the  most 
stinging  rebuke  must  be  given  to  such  per- 
fidy. As  we  are  all  children  of  God,  what- 
ever the  variety  of  our  nationality,  w^e  are 
necessarily  brethren,  with  the  divine  com- 
mand upon  us,  "Love  one  another."  The 
selfish  and  provincial  statesman  is  just  to 
his  countrymen,  a  thief  and  a  murderer  to 
the  inconvenient  foreigner.  It  is  the  Church 
alone  which,  as  an  institution,  brings  such 


156  THE   MINISTRY 

a  degenerate  to  his  senses.  The  most  hope- 
less moment  in  the  history  of  Germany  was 
when  the  clergy  gave  their  sanction  to  the 
invasion  of  Belgium,  the  destruction  of 
innocent  French  non-combatants,  and  the 
sinking  of  ships  going  upon  their  unwarlike 
and  legitimate  errands.  The  most  encour- 
aging moment  for  any  nation  is  when  the 
clergy  of  that  particular  country  rise  up  as 
one  man  (not  by  common  agreement  but 
spontaneously,  each  directed  by  the  voice 
of  God)  to  compel  the  government  to  deal 
justly  with  all  men  however  distant  in 
space  and  tradition. 

The  inevitable  interest  which  an  earnest 
ministry  must  have  in  foreign  missions  is 
a  safeguard  to  an  honorable  international 
respect.  Almost  every  minister  has  a  dear 
friend  who  is  in  the  native  ministry  of 
Japan;  another  who,  though  an  Anglo- 
Saxon,  is  giving  his  whole  life  to  a  great 
district  in  China.  Should  relationships  be- 
tween America  on  the  one  hand  and  China 
or  Japan  on  the  other  become  strained,  it  is 
unthinkable  that  Christian  men  bound  to- 
gether by  the  intimate  ties  of  friendship 
should  not  have  vast  powers  of  reconcilia- 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    157 

tion,  just  in  so  far  as  the  missionary  work 
has  been  effective.  We  have  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  among  the  very  best,  if  not  the 
very  best  men  of  both  China  and  Japan  are 
Christians,  taught  by  missionaries,  educated 
in  our  Christian  colleges.  These  men  are 
leaders  and  more  and  more  will  be  leaders. 
They  will  see  America  through  those  Amer- 
icans who  cared  enough  to  become  exiles 
from  beloved  homes  in  order  to  tell  them  of 
Christ,  in  order  to  live  and  die  for  them 
in  Christ's  Name.  And  a  great  company  of 
our  best  countrymen  will  see  China  and 
Japan  through  these  Japanese  and  Chinese 
Christians.  The  world,  even  though  it  may 
not  see  the  chief  boon  which  Christianity 
has  bestowed,  will  come  to  see  that  Chris- 
tianity already  tends  to  save  men  from  in- 
ternational fraud  and  hate,  and  may  be 
counted  on  at  last  to  make  secure  interna- 
tional justice.  In  any  case,  however  iri- 
descent this  dream  seem  to  the  sceptic, 
there  is  no  other  institution  but  the  Church 
of  Christ  which  can  pretend  to  hope  to 
accomplish  so  arduous  a  task. 

The   world   of   responsible   statesmen   so 
far  as  they  can  be  imagined  as  coming  to- 


158  THE  MINISTRY 

gether  to  work  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
civilization  of  the  earth  must,  if  they  think 
their  task  through,  long  to  see  the  Christian 
Church  attain  some  form  of  unity  which 
shall  leave  the  individual  free  to  follow  his 
conscience  and  yet  unite  the  Christian  men 
of  all  the  nations  into  one  willing  brother- 
hood, intent  upon  seeing  in  one  another  the 
face  of  the  loving  Christ.  If  such  unity 
might  come  to  the  Church,  if  such  deep- 
seated  trust  and  understanding  could  be 
given  to  those  who  now  work  in  separate 
camps,  the  force  of  the  Church  as  a  benef- 
icent agency  in  the  world  would  be  mani- 
fold what  it  is  to-day.  This  force  would 
not  come  as  a  master  (as  in  the  Mediaeval 
Church),  but  as  a  loving  servant  (as  in  the 
Primitive  Church,  when  Christ  knelt  to 
wash  His  disciples'  feet,  and  when  Peter 
and  John  said:  "Silver  and  gold  have  I 
none,  but  such  as  I  have  give  I  thee.  .  .  . 
Rise  up  and  walk"). 

The  Church  has  far  to  go.  Its  history  Is 
only  beginning.  It  has  had  amazing  vic- 
tories and  heart-rending  defeats.  It  has 
had  false,  greedy  unities  and  hateful  separ- 
ations, but  it  is  potentially  the  salvation  of 


NECESSITY  OF  THE  MINISTRY    159 

the  world.  More  and  more,  if  the  best  men 
in  the  world  will  give  their  genius,  their  in- 
tegrity, and  their  devotion  to  the  ministry, 
the  Church  will  bring  the  nations  into  a 
joyful  unity  where  each  shall  strive  for  the 
good  of  all,  and  all  shall  pour  the  blessings 
of  their  strength  into  the  feeble  and  the 
discouraged. 

There  are  some  men  with  large  enough 
vision  to  long  for  the  salvation  of  the  world. 
That  salvation,  accomplished  once  for  all  in 
the  sacrificial  love  of  Christ,  shall  be  realized 
through  the  patient  and  loving  efforts  of  a 
consistent  Christian  ministry.  Lift  up  your 
heads,  humble  ministers  of  Christ ;  you  have 
the  supreme  task  among  the  tasks  revealed 
to  men ! 


VIII 

THE  COMPENSATIONS  OF  THE 
MINISTRY 

I 

ENOUGH  TO  LIVE  UPON 

A  MAN  entering  any  vocation  has  a  right  to 
ask  whether  he  can  support  himself  and  his 
family  on  the  salary  which  he  is  likely  to 
receive.  If  a  man  feels  himself  really  called 
to  a  vocation,  the  enthusiasm  of  his  assur- 
ance that  God  has  designed  him  for  that 
niche  in  life,  will  carry  him  far  beyond  any 
such  consideration  as  the  means  of  liveli- 
hood. But  he  must  ask  the  question  at 
last,  and  he  has  a  right  to  ask  it. 

If  you  have  the  ambition  to  be  rich,  you 
can  entertain  no  thought  that  the  ministry 
will  by  any  chance  lead  to  wealth.  Even 
the  largest  salaries  paid  to  the  most  con- 
spicuous ministers  of  America  must  seem 
insignificant  to  the  men  of  the  same  effi- 

i6o 


COMPENSATIONS  i6i 

ciency  in  medicine  and  the  law;  and  to  the 
men  of  the  same  caliber  in  business  they 
must  seem  ridiculously  meagre  as  the  re- 
ward of  a  year's  hard  work.  At  the  be- 
ginning, therefore,  one  must  see  that  the 
recompense  of  the  ministry  is  not  in  money. 

The  question  then  comes,  "Will  the  or- 
dinary man  be  able  to  live  upon  what  is 
given  to  average  ability  ?  "  Often  the  extra- 
ordinary man  is  in  a  place  which  can  sup- 
port only  a  man  of  average  ability;  but 
most  men  rightly  put  themselves  modestly 
among  the  average  class.  A  good  many 
things  need  to  be  said  about  this.  In  gen- 
eral, I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  men 
who  have  difficulty  in  supporting  their 
families  are  not  more  in  the  ministry  than 
in  the  law,  medicine,  teaching,  or  business. 

One  reason  why  we  observe  failure  of 
support  in  the  ministry  is  because  the  men 
who  give  up  the  ministry  to  find  what  they 
think  more  nearly  adequate  support  else- 
where are  thereby  marked.  A  man  is  sup- 
posed to  stay  in  the  ministry  after  he  enters 
it.  I  know  a  great  many  men  outside  the 
ministry  who  try  one  task  after  another, 
and  no  one  thinks  much  about  it.     Because 


i62  THE   MINISTRY 

they  move  from  the  law  or  medicine  into 
business,  no  one  cries  out  that  the  law  or 
medicine  does  not  support  lawyers  or  phy- 
sicians. It  does  not  support  one  particu- 
lar lawyer,  or  one  particular  physician ;  that 
is  all.  So  you  must  not  think  that  because 
a  minister  you  know  has  gone  into  business 
the  ministry  therefore  does  not  support  the 
clergy.  Most  men  get  on  very  comfort- 
ably; and  their  homes  are  apt  to  be  in  bet- 
ter taste,  essentially  more  comfortable,  than 
nine-tenths  of  the  homes  in  their  commu- 
nity, village,  or  city.  The  homes  of  people 
who  have  no  more  than  the  parson  and  his 
wife  are  sometimes  confused  and  soiled. 
The  homes  of  those  who  have  more  are 
sometimes  vulgar  in  their  display,  either  re- 
vealing the  so-called  taste  of  an  interior 
decorator  or  no  taste  at  all.  Money  can- 
not of  itself  make  either  beauty  or  comfort. 
That  something  which  the  parson  and  his 
wife  are  apt  to  have,  can,  with  a  little 
money,  make  both  comfort  and  beauty. 

The  salaries  of  the  clergy  are  much  better 
than  they  have  been,  and  they  are  con- 
stantly increasing,  under  the  leadership  of 
certain  wise  counsellors  blessed  with  imag- 


COMPENSATIONS  163 

ination,  who  know  that  the  minds  of  the 
clergy  must  be  emancipated  from  fretting 
cares  if  they  are  to  do  their  best  work.  So 
pension  funds  have  been  established  in 
several  Communions,  and  a  man's  old  age 
is  provided  for  if  he  lives;  his  widow  and 
children  are  provided  for  if  he  dies.  The 
salaries  at  the  beginning  of  a  man's  minis- 
try are  somewhat  larger  than  his  brother 
could  expect  from  fees  in  his  early  practice 
of  law  or  medicine.  And  enough  men  are 
aroused  to  the  need  of  supplying  adequate 
salaries  to  make  it  certain  that  no  one  really 
need  hesitate  to  enter  the  ministry  for  eco- 
nomic reasons.  We  must  frankly  admit  that 
the  ministry,  like  teaching,  is  scandalously 
underpaid,  when  we  consider  the  benefit 
which  these  vocations  bestow  upon  the 
community.  A  man  must  find  In  the  min- 
istry such  enticing  compensation  In  Its  work 
that  he  Is  content  to  overlook  Its  limited 
compensation  In  money.  At  the  same  time 
he  may  believe  that  the  salaries  of  the 
clergy  will  be  more  nearly  adequate  within 
the  next  few  years. 

Meantime,  men  who  have  found  It  neces- 
sary to  economize  at  every  turn  of  their 


i64  THE  MINISTRY 

ministry,  have  found  a  certain  satisfaction 
in  its  suggestion  of  sacrifice.  When  a  par- 
son in  a  pleasant  New  England  village  or  in 
the  outskirts  of  a  Western  city  thinks  of 
his  classmate  who  has  gone  to  China  or 
India,  a  willing  exile  from  his  dearest  friends 
and  relatives,  he  is  glad  that  he  has  some 
share  In  the  heroic  aspect  of  the  ministry. 
He  would  be  ashamed  to  have  his  ministry 
at  home  too  comfortable. 

Moreover,  the  devout  and  serious  think- 
ing characteristic  of  the  parsonage  or  rec- 
tory, combined  with  its  plain  living,  has 
made  the  best  background  for  the  training 
of  children.  Any  one  who  has  not  hitherto 
made  the  investigation,  will  be  astonished 
to  discover  how  large  is  the  proportion  of 
distinguished  leaders  in  public  life  whose 
fathers  were  ministers.  The  refinement  and 
cultivation,  unhampered  by  idleness,  undue 
pleasure,  and  luxury,  have  made  great  men. 
One  begins  to  revise  one's  notions  of  the 
qualities  and  quantities  which  make  the 
most  desirable  environment  for  a  growing 
family.  As  the  ministry  becomes  more 
prosperous  in  a  worldly  way — as  it  will 
become — we  must  beware  of  the  risk  men- 


COMPENSATIONS  165 

tioned  by  the  Psalmist,  "He  gave  them 
their  desire:  and  sent  leanness  withal  Into 
their  soul."  In  the  past,  meagre  surround- 
ings have  allowed  a  first  place  to  joyful 
sacrifice  and  a  devout  spirit  of  unselfish 
service.  Whatever  hardship  there  was,  has 
been  transcended  by  the  discovery  and  the 
winning  of  the  best  values  in  life. 

II 

THE  JOY  OF  ADVENTURE 

When  a  war  comes,  youth  are  aroused  by 
the  beckoning  of  a  gallant  and  unselfish 
adventure.  But  In  days  of  peace  the  field 
of  adventure  Is  limited.  One  of  the  fields 
of  adventure  always  open  for  the  daringly 
unselfish  is  the  Christian  ministry.  The 
ministry  offers  to-day  almost  as  great  a  risk 
as  it  offered  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
the  brave  Jesuit  priests  pushed  through  the 
American  forests  to  preach  Christ  to  the 
hunters  and  the  fishermen.  Arctic  cold  and 
tropic  heat  cannot  frighten  men  who  hear 
the  cry  to  help  to  the  uttermost  the  men  of 
Alaska,  the  men  of  Central  Africa,  and  of 
other  difficult  regions  of  the  earth. 


i66  THE   MINISTRY 

The  Christian  missionary  goes  to  his  field 
so  blithely  that  most  of  us  little  suspect 
his  sense  of  sacrifice.  A  friend  who  had 
planned  all  through  his  college  and  semi- 
nary days  to  go  to  China  was  on  fire  with 
enthusiasm  to  be  away,  and  at  work  in  his 
chosen  field.  He  went  off  with  banners  fly- 
ing. But  he  told  me  that  when  he  said 
good-bye  at  Vancouver  to  his  mother  and 
his  sister,  knowing  that  not  for  seven  years 
(If  at  all)  would  he  see  them  again,  his 
heart  was  near  breaking.  He  transcended 
his  homesickness  by  the  glory  of  his  mis- 
sion, but  his  heroism  was  at  least  as  real  as 
that  of  any  soldier  going  off  to  the  wars. 

Less  than  twenty  years  ago  a  clergy- 
man in  a  Texan  city,  with  reputation  as  a 
preacher,  with  a  prosperous  and  affection- 
ate parish  behind  him,  deliberately  left  the 
prospect  of  a  pleasant  career  and  offered 
himself  for  work  in  Alaska.  I  chanced  to 
spend  several  weeks  in  the  s^me  inn  with 
him,  in  the  Canadian  Rockies,  as  he  made 
his  way  northward.  He  had  never  climbed 
a  high  mountain,  but  he  was  thinking  of  the 
heights  of  Alaska,  which  he  meant  to  scale. 
He  had  bought  an  aneroid,  and  he  had  pos- 


COMPENSATIONS  167 

sessed  himself  of  other  equipment  useful  for 
a  mountain  climber.  After  he  had  been  at 
Lake  Louise  a  few  days,  he  formed  a  party 
and,  with  two  Swiss  guides,  he  climbed  the 
most  hazardous  peak  in  the  vicinity.  Mount 
Victoria.  It  was  a  rash  feat  for  one  so 
little  tried  in  the  art  of  climbing,  but  he 
achieved  his  ambition  for  that  stage  of  his 
journey,  and  soon  he  was  on  his  way  to  the 
coast  to  go  on  board  the  Alaskan  steamer. 

The  story  of  Hudson  Stuck  is  known  by 
every  one  who  is  interested  in  mountain 
climbing  and  in  Christian  missions.  He 
achieved  the  summit  of  Mount  Denali, 
and  he  made  even  more  venturesome  jour- 
neys through  summer  floods  and  winter 
snows  to  minister  to  scattered  people.  He 
brought  them  joy  and  diversion,  he  brought 
them  also  goodness  and  peace.  The  out- 
side world  admired  him;  the  people  of 
Alaska  loved  him.  It  was  the  spirit  of 
adventure  which  lured  him  on  to  be  a 
notable  missionary,  for  ever  to  be  remem- 
bered in  the  annals  of  the  Christian  Church. 

When  we  think  of  the  thousands  of  men 
who  voluntarily  exile  themselves  to  build 
up  the  frontiers  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  we 


i68  THE  MINISTRY 

have  a  new  respect  for  the  ministry.  It  is 
not  the  soft  thing  many  a  facile  talker 
thinks  it.  It  is  beset  with  hardness  and  peril, 
and  it  is  crowded  with  the  love  which  allows 
nothing  to  come  between  it  and  Christ. 

Incidentally,  a  minister  who  watches  his 
brother  go  off  to  the  edges  of  our  own 
country  and  to  the  foreign  lands  beyond 
the  seas  is  grateful  that  there  are  difficul- 
ties at  home.  He  is  glad  if  he  must  spend 
many  years  in  the  dense  noise  of  the  city 
or  the  loneliness  of  the  country,  with  a 
salary  which  requires  circumspection  in  its 
spending,  that  he  may  be  able  to  count 
himself  at  least  of  the  same  devoted  band 
as  his  fellows  who  have  gone  into  the  utter- 
most parts  of  the  earth.  Youth,  at  its 
best,  does  not  want  money  or  ease ;  it  craves 
adventure.  And  the  ministry  offers  it  in 
glittering  abundance. 

Ill 

THE  LOVE   OF  HUMANITY 

In  America,  we  have  a  rough  division  of 
life  into  (i)  country,  (2)  town,  and  (3)  city. 
Speaking  arbitrarily,  we  may  define  rural 


COMPENSATIONS  169 

life  as  life  on  isolated  farms,  plantations, 
and  ranches;  or  in  communities  of  less  than 
two  thousand  people;  town  life,  as  life  in 
communities  of  from  two  thousand  to 
twenty  thousand  people ;  and  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  city  life  we  may  ascribe  to  com- 
munities of  more  than  twenty  thousand 
people.  Let  us  ask  what  are  the  compensa- 
tions of  the  ministry  in  these  various  con- 
ditions in  our  own  land;  and  then  let  us 
turn  to  the  compensations  which  may  be 
found  in  a  ministry  in  a  foreign  field. 


IN  THE  COUNTRY 

We  need  to  know  again  the  opportunity 
of  a  ministry  in  the  country.  We  often  say 
that  in  England  the  opportunity  is  proved 
by  the  fame  won  by  Richard  Hooker  while 
he  was  Rector  of  Bishopthorpe,  by  George 
Herbert  while  he  was  Rector  of  Bemerton, 
by  John  Keble  while  he  was  Rector  of  Hurs- 
ley,  by  Richard  Church  while  he  was  Rec- 
tor of  Whatley,  and  by  Charles  Kingsley 
while  he  was  Rector  of  Eversley.  They 
wrote  village  sermons  which   are   classics; 


I70  THE   MINISTRY 

and  they  also  used  their  leisure  to  write 
books,  which  make  their  names  illustrious 
wherever  English  is  spoken.  The  ministry 
of  great  city  churches  and  cathedrals,  of 
dioceses  and  provinces,  is  largely  forgotten, 
v/hile  gratitude  still  goes  out  to  these  rural 
parsons.  In  our  own  day  England  sets  us 
an  example  of  courage  in  the  country  min- 
istry. 

To-day  In  America  the  man  whose  life  is 
confined  to  a  rural  ministry  through  many 
years  is  apt  to  feel  aggrieved.  He  thinks 
himself  neglected,  unappreciated,  and  then, 
if  he  persists  in  this  mood,  he  rusts  out,  and 
he  mourns  that  he  has  failed.  There  are, 
of  course,  notable  exceptions  to-day;  and 
in  the  past  we  find  most  distinguished  min- 
istries in  the  country.  Let  me  give  one 
example.  The  Reverend  Jared  Eliot  (the 
son  of  John  Eliot,  "the  Apostle  to  the  In- 
dians") was  graduated  from  Yale  in  1706. 
For  three  years  he  taught  school.  In  1709 
he  settled  down  to  a  pastorate  of  fifty-four 
years  in  the  village  of  Killingworth,  Con- 
necticut— that  is,  he  stayed  happily  and 
contentedly  in  this  rural  parish  till  he  died. 
He  introduced  the  mulberry-tree  into  Con- 


COMPENSATIONS  171 

necticut  and  wrote  an  essay  on  the  silk- 
worm. He  wrote  the  first  American  book 
on  Agriculture,  and  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  Royal  Society  of  London.  All  these 
books  and  enthusiasms  were  his  avocations, 
his  pastimes.  His  real  work  was  his  village 
ministry  which  brought  him  both  satisfac- 
tion and  fame,  for  his  printed  sermons  are 
still  to  be  found  in  Connecticut  libraries. 
He  was  not  only  the  most  loved  man  in 
Killingworth,  but  he  was,  by  his  sympa- 
thies and  industry,  a  man  valued  by  all  the 
country  around  him  and  by  learned  men 
across  the  sea.  America  was  not  always 
afraid  of  the  rural  ministry.  It  knew  how 
to  use  its  wisdom  and  its  leisure  to  high  and 
varied  purposes  within  the  largeness  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

There  are  to-day  men  who  are  joyfully 
giving  their  whole  lives  to  the  rural  min- 
istry. One  man,  of  whom  I  think,  was 
forced  by  frail  health  to  work  in  the  coun- 
try. With  the  ability  which  could  have 
directed  a  metropolitan  parish,  he  is  serving 
a  small  congregation  on  Sunday,  and  is 
serving  the  whole  neighborhood  through  the 
week.     He  has  brought  his  imagination  and 


172  THE   MINISTRY 

genius  into  the  drabness  of  the  village  and 
its  surrounding  farms.  Unheard-of  things 
are  being  done.  Like  the  country  doctor, 
in  Balzac's  story,  he  is  reconstructing  the 
community.  Beginning  with  material  im- 
provement, he  has  passed  to  the  mental 
sphere,  and  now  to  the  heights  of  the  spirit. 
He  is  reading  and  thinking  and  writing ;  but 
most  of  all,  by  God's  help,  he  is  creating  in 
flesh  and  blood  a  miniature  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

For  a  short  time  I  had  some  experience 
of  the  rural  ministry.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  joy  of  mounting  my  horse,  and  going 
over  the  country  roads  to  see  my  scattered 
parishioners.  One  old  saint  I  remember  in 
particular.  He  had  all  his  life  been  a  gen- 
tleman, and  he  had  always  been  a  farmer. 
He  could  not  often  come  to  church,  and  I 
therefore  would  ask  him  before  going  from 
his  house,  if  he  would  like  to  have  prayers. 
"Yes,  very  much,*'  he  would  answer;  "but 
excuse  me  for  a  moment."  Whereupon  he 
would  disappear,  to  return  wearing  a  black 
frock  coat,  thus  showing  his  respect  for  the 
act  of  worship.  I  went  away  thinking  of 
many  things,  knowing  myself  to  have  been 


COMPENSATIONS  173 

in  a  most  reverent  sense  in  God*s  presence. 
A  little  farther  on  I  came  to  a  man  who 
lived  alone  with  his  daughter.  He  gave  me 
a  picture  of  St.  Alban's  Abbey,  and  he  told 
me  stories  of  his  boyhood  in  the  old  town. 
I  knew  that  the  picture  was  one  of  his  most 
prized  treasures,  but  I  knew  also  that  I 
must  take  it.  The  small  photograph  is 
near  me  as  I  write,  and  it  tells  me  of  a  lov- 
ing confidence  which  belongs  to  the  open 
sky  and  the  friendship  of  a  good  and  simple 
man.  On  those  rides  down  the  open  road, 
I  talked  of  trees  and  crops  and  grim  acci- 
dents; but  I  was  learning  deep  lessons  from 
people  who  lived  day  by  day  in  the  air  and 
the  sunshine  and  the  fragrant  rain. 

There  ought  to  be  men  who  in  the  theo- 
logical school  will  see  the  vision  of  the  com- 
pensations of  the  rural  ministry  and  delib- 
erately fit  themselves  for  it.  While  in  the 
seminary  they  might  wisely  take  courses  in 
a  neighboring  agricultural  college,  thereby 
fitting  themselves  for  the  specific  conditions 
of  country  life.  Men  of  wealth  who  are 
drawn  to  country  life,  and  yet  want  to 
serve  in  some  high  way,  might  give  them- 
selves to  such  a  ministry  among  the  farms. 


174  THE  MINISTRY 

Outwardly  they  would  be  that  combination 
of  squire  and  parson  which  is  called  in 
England  a  squarson;  inwardly,  they  would 
be  the  redeeming  leaders  of  the  vast  country 
life  of  America  which  to-day,  as  never  be- 
fore, awaits  leadership. 

In  the  rural  ministry  there  is  possibly 
a  great  opportunity  for  the  whole  Nation. 
One  of  the  wisest  men  I  know  said  to  me 
recently  that  the  leadership  of  America  was 
stale,  because  it  was  confined  at  present  to 
the  voices  in  the  great  cities.  He  lamented 
that  the  voices  most  often  heard  were  sub- 
ject to  panic  and  fear  and  selfishness;  and 
resented  any  real  reflection,  any  considera- 
tion of  change  or  possible  improvement. 
Then  he  added  that  we  could  not  hope  for 
a  really  sane  leadership  till  men  ceased  to 
herd  together  in  cities  and  betook  them- 
selves to  the  open  country,  there  to  find 
freedom  and  judgment,  and  in  the  conscious 
presence  of  God  to  think  the  problems  of 
the  Nation  and  the  world  through  to  their 
divine  solution.  Is  that  not  an  alluring  pic- 
ture? Would  you  not  like  to  go  forth  into 
the  open  spaces,  with  enough  men  to  serve, 
to  love,  and  to  be  loved  by,  and  yet  with 


COMPENSATIONS  175 

leisure  enough  to  think,  and  then,  when  the 
fire  burns,  to  speak  out,  and  to  be  perhaps 
safe  leaders  of  men  everywhere? 

Several  years  ago  I  chanced  to  be  spend- 
ing the  summer  in  a  mountain  village. 
There  was  one  church  serving  the  whole 
community,  which  numbered  only  a  few 
hundred  people.  The  pastor  had  grown 
old  in  his  modest  charge.  The  people  who 
augmented  his  flock  in  the  summer  seemed 
quite  as  appreciative  of  his  ministrations 
as  the  people  who  lived  there  through  the 
year.  Among  these  summer  visitors  was  a 
university  professor  who  each  year  spent  a 
month  in  an  inn  hard  by.  He  was  used  to 
the  voices  of  the  most  distinguished  reli- 
gious leaders  in  this  country  and  England ; 
yet  he  said  that  if  he  needed  spiritual  help 
in  any  considerable  crisis  he  would  turn  to 
the  pastor  of  this  village  church.  Some 
way  he  felt  that  this  man  who  knew  a  few 
souls  thoroughly  and  who  was  not  jostled 
by  the  thronging  and  noisy  duties  of  the 
city  had  come  to  more  intimate  knowledge 
of  God  and  man  than  the  preachers  he  was 
accustomed  to  hear  in  the  university  centre. 

The  compensations  of  the  rural  ministry 


176  THE  MINISTRY 

are  radiant.     Who  will  earn  them  in  the 
years  just  before  us  ? 

6 

IN  THE  TOWN 

Then  there  is  the  ministry  in  the  town. 
There  is  a  unique  friendliness  in  a  place 
which  is  large  enough  to  have  varieties  of 
people  and  interests,  yet  not  too  large  to 
allow  every  one  to  know  every  one  else.  Not 
only  the  parson's  parishioners,  but  all  the 
others  are  the  parson's  friends.  To  the 
being  who  loves  his  fellow  man  it  is  cheer- 
ing to  meet  at  every  turn  people  whom  he 
knows  and  cares  for.  The  town  becomes  a 
larger  family.  The  fussy  person  may  com- 
plain that  his  neighbors  are  overinterested 
in  his  affairs,  that  his  plans  are  discussed 
before  he  has  fixed  upon  them,  that  his 
idiosyncrasies  are  the  topic  of  many  a  tea- 
table,  that  the  color  of  his  house  and  the 
shape  of  his  hat  are  matters  of  vivid  interest 
to  his  aunt's  most  intimate  friends.  Most 
qualities  have  their  defects,  and  it  would 
not  be  strange  if  the  friendliness  of  a  town 
had  certain  inconveniences.     But  these  are 


COMPENSATIONS  177 

trifling  when  you  contemplate  the  human- 
ness  of  the  interest.  The  parson  is  not 
living  among  mere  houses  and  shops  and 
streets,  but  among  people.  And  the  people 
are  neither  wax  nor  stone,  but  flesh  and 
blood,  who  recognize  in  you  a  fellow  mortal, 
in  whom  they  claim  kinship  because  you 
and  they  live  in  the  same  town.  And  the 
parson  has  more  of  the  friendship  than  any 
one  else,  because  he  is  the  parson. 

If  the  parson  is  ill,  the  children  come  on 
tiptoe  to  his  door  and  bring  him  wild  flowers 
which  they  have  gathered;  a  gruff  old  man 
brings  a  witty  book;  and  the  whole  town 
does  not  allow  itself  to  go  to  sleep  till  it 
knows  each  day  how  the  parson  is  gaining. 
If  blinding  sorrow  comes,  and  one  thinks 
that  love  has  died  out  of  the  universe,  friend 
after  friend  comes  with  token  or  with  word 
to  assure  the  broken  heart  that  God's  love 
is  yet  the  supreme  fact  in  the  world.  A 
hush  descends  upon  the  very  streets  when 
deep  sorrow  comes  to  a  dear  neighbor  in 
the  town. 

This  pervasive  friendship  gives  to  the 
parson  a  peculiar  influence.  Because  his 
days  are  not  crowded  with  routine  he  may 


178  THE   MINISTRY 

seize  various  opportunities  for  leadership 
which  his  neighbors  plead  with  him  to  as- 
sume. He  may  guide  the  reading,  through 
suggesting  fine  books  for  the  public  library; 
he  may  organize  a  society  for  the  architec- 
tural improvement  of  the  business  streets; 
he  may  deftly  suggest  how  a  shrub  here,  a 
tree  there,  a  bit  of  open  grass,  a  bed  of  gay 
flowers,  may  transform  into  beauty  the 
monotonous  streets,  where  the  houses  are; 
he  may  found  a  hospital;  he  may  quicken 
a  right  public  opinion  for  sound  local  gov- 
ernment, and  he  may  persuade  the  busiest 
and  most  honorable  of  his  parishioners  to 
offer  themselves  for  public  office. 

Every  one  who  knows  such  a  parson  is 
apt  to  point  with  pride  to  his  commanding 
position,  showing  that  he  is  the  most  use- 
ful man  and  the  most  loved  man  within 
many  miles.  I  remember  a  parson  in  a 
town  of  about  ten  thousand  people  who 
quietly  reported  that  he  had  seen  a  candi- 
date for  the  State  governorship  drunken, 
that  he  had  heard  him  use  grossly  profane 
language;  he  said,  therefore,  that  such  a 
man  ought  not  to  be  governor  of  his  State. 
The  candidate  wrote  an  overbearing  letter 


COMPENSATIONS  179 

commanding  denial.  The  parson  Instantly 
replied  that,  so  far  from  recanting,  he  would 
gladly  give.  If  he  wished,  full  Information, 
the  hotel,  the  day,  and  the  hour.  The 
story  spread  over  the  State,  which  was 
saved  thereby  the  calamity  of  having  such 
a  governor.  His  defeat  was  thought  im- 
possible, because  he  represented  the  domi- 
nant party,  and  his  opponent  was  practi- 
cally unknown. 

I  had  a  ministry  of  eleven  happy  years  in 
a  town  of  about  seven  thousand  people.  I 
have  not  seen  it  for  fourteen  years,  but  I 
think  I  could  go  to  every  door-step  where 
my  dear  parishioners  and  friends  lived,  and 
if  they  are  still  living  where  they  then  lived, 
I  could  see  again  all  the  joys  and  sorrows 
which  I  lived  out  with  them,  and  I  could 
begin  where  I  left  them  one  November  day 
many  years  ago,  and  speak  of  those  they 
loved,  of  the  teacher  who  taught  their  chil- 
dren, of  the  lame  man  who  made  most  ex- 
cellent jests  and  smiled  through  the  pain, 
of  the  professor  of  theology  who  scolded 
first  and  then  gave  a  genial  affection  to  his 
younger  friends,  of  the  old  lady  with  a  little 
dog  who  lived  in  a  vine-covered  cottage  and 


i8o  THE   MINISTRY 

spoke  with  charm  of  noble  men  and  women 
whom  she  had  known  more  or  less  inti- 
mately through  her  four-score  years,  of  a 
distinguished  bishop  who  for  forty  years 
had  been  the  father  of  the  town. 

And  how  the  children  of  that  town  stand 
forth  in  my  memory !  There  was  the  boy 
who  swore  at  the  curate,  whom  I  afterward 
reproached  with  his  backsliding,  who  went 
away  without  a  word,  but  who  (I  found  the 
next  morning)  had  late  at  night  put  a  tear- 
stained  unsigned  paper  under  my  door,  say- 
ing, 'Til  never  do  it  again.'*  [It  was  the 
best  anonymous  letter  I  ever  received.] 
There  was  the  very  young  child  who  shook 
his  fist  out  of  the  window,  upon  being  told 
that  God  made  it  rain,  the  form  of  prayer 
used  being,  "I  want  you  to  stop."  [Be- 
ginning there,  I  was  requested  to  give  an 
infallible  rule  for  making  children  reverent 
as  well  as  prayerful.]  I  remember  the  small 
girl  who  was  so  generous  that  when  her 
father  forbade  her  putting  more  money  in 
her  missionary  mite-box,  sought  the  house 
of  her  aunt,  and  put  all  of  her  living  into 
her  cousin's  box.  "Papa,"  she  said  with  a 
sigh,  "didn't  tell  me  I  couldn't  put  money 


COMPENSATIONS  i8i 

into  Robbie's  box/'  [How  those  children 
did  give  to  missions  !]  I  remember  the  boy 
who  startled  his  mother's  caller  by  making 
deafening  crashes  over  the  drawing-room. 
When  his  mother,  having  said  good-bye  to 
the  somewhat  stately  new  acquaintance, 
went  to  the  door  of  the  up-stairs  room,  she 
found  the  boy  trying  to  put  his  rocking- 
horse  on  two  chairs,  each  time  failing  with 
the  loud  drop  of  the  beast.  When  asked 
what  he  was  doing,  he  replied,  "Oh,  I  was 
trying  to  put  the  ass  into  the  pinnace.'* 
[He  had  been  reading  The  Swiss  Family 
Robinson  :  very  intelligent  children  I  had  in 
my  parish.] 

To  think  of  such  experiences  is  to  know 
that  there  was  something  eternal  in  the  rela- 
tionship of  pastor  and  flock  in  that  blessed 
town.  I  never  can  forget  those  people;  I 
hope  that  at  least  some  of  them  will  always 
remember  me.  One  has  no  longing  to  be 
gone  from  such  a  ministry ;  one  would  cheer- 
fully stay  all  one's  days  within  it.  For  it  is 
friendly;  it  is  home. 


{ 

i82  THE   MINISTRY 


IN  THE  CITY 


The  response  which  the  ministry  receives 
in  the  city  is  not  essentially  different  from 
the  response  which  it  receives  in  the  village 
and  the  town.  Human  needs  are  the  same 
everywhere.  The  man  who  gives  his  life 
for  others  will  always  receive  the  love  which 
loving  service  commands.  Its  expression 
may  vary:  the  reality  will  be  the  same. 

The  city  parish  is  apt  to  differ  from  the 
country  parish  by  having  in  it  people  more 
or  less  of  the  same  kind.  If  the  parish  is 
on  the  East  Side  of  New  York,  it  will  be 
made  up  almost  exclusively  of  very  poor 
people.  If  it  is  in  a  section  where  prosper- 
ous people  live,  the  pews  will  be  filled  with 
people  who  seem  (at  least  to  the  stranger) 
to  be  very  prosperous.  Of  course  every 
parish  has  its  rich  and  its  poor,  but  the  pro- 
portion varies.  The  most  satisfactory  par- 
ish is  the  parish  which  lovingly  ministers  to 
all  sorts  of  people. 

To  the  outsider  the  city  seems  hard  and 
cold.     He   pities  the   country   parson   who 


COMPENSATIONS  183 

moves  from  a  small  town  to  a  great  city. 
He  suspects  that  the  parson  will  be  shiver- 
ing in  his  loneliness,  hemmed  in  by  a  wait- 
ing conventionality.  I  shall  never  forget 
how,  in  one  such  transition,  a  very  old  and 
very  noble  city  parishioner  wrote  to  her 
new  rector  whom  she  had  barely  seen,  "I 
have  known  and  loved  three  rectors  of  this 
parish;  and  I  am  ready  to  give  my  love  to 
their  successor."  And  that  letter  was  not 
isolated.  It  was  a  sample  from  a  general 
response  which  but  deepened  through  the 
years. 

Because  people  seem  to  have  every  earth- 
ly wish  satisfied,  because  they  have  houses 
and  lands,  pictures  and  jewels,  and  perhaps 
great  place  through  inheritance  or  genius, 
therefore  the  stupid  believe  that  they  desire 
nothing  from  any  one.  It  is  the  tragedy  of 
such  lives  that  their  friends  are  often  few 
and  these  few  feel  that  there  is  nothing 
which  they  can  bestow  upon  such  super- 
abundance. So  at  Christmas  there  is  for 
them  slight  symbol  of  the  love  in  which 
they  are  held.  We  are  strangely  slow  in 
learning  the  human  heart.  The  demands 
of  human  life  are  elemental.     The  power  to 


i84  THE  MINISTRY 

buy  material  things  does  not  include  the 
power  to  be  possessed  of  the  intangible  real- 
ities such  as  joy  and  respect  and  honor  and 
genuine  love.  If  these  priceless  possessions 
are  won  they  are  won  exactly  as  the  poorest 
win  them.  And  so,  passing  by  all  other 
means  of  happiness,  we  know  that  the  rich 
man  quite  as  the  poor  man  is  glad  to  have 
a  true  friend  in  his  pastor  to  whom  he  can 
turn  in  days  of  darkness  or  of  doubt,  and 
be  assured  that  the  call  from  the  depths 
will  be  answered.  You  cannot  be  Doctor 
Lavender  all  at  once,  but  it  is  astonishing 
what  trust  people  who  have  much  either 
in  character  or  in  possessions  will  give  to 
Doctor  Lavenders  in  the  making.  The 
late  Franklin  Spencer  Spalding  was  known 
chiefly  as  the  courageous  bishop  of  Utah, 
but  he  had  first  a  remarkable  pastorate  in 
a  city.  The  small  son  of  one  of  his  well-to- 
do  parishioners  one  day  asked  his  mother 
what  little  boys  did  who  had  no  fathers  and 
mothers.  Then  he  answered  the  question 
himself:  "I  know — they  have  Christ — and 
Mr.  Spalding.**  What  a  vision  this  child 
gives  us  into  the  value  which  one  family 
put  upon  a  minister's  friendship ! 


COMPENSATIONS  185 

The  inexperienced  are  apt  to  doubt  also 
the  response  of  the  other  extreme  in  the  life 
of  the  city — the  parish  made  up  of  the  very 
poor.  One  wonders  if  the  bitterness  of 
poverty  or  the  interest  in  loaves  and  fishes 
may  not  build  a  wall  which  keeps  out 
friendship.  You  have  but  to  go  into  a 
parish  in  the  densely  crowded  portion  of  a 
great  city  to  discover  what  the  parson  is 
to  his  poor  parishioners.  He  goes  to  see 
them;  but  they  more  frequently  come  to 
see  him.  The  parish  house  is  the  radiant 
part  of  their  home.  The  friends  who  mean 
most  in  their  lives  they  meet  there.  And 
at  the  head  is  the  good  pastor;  their  eyes 
follow  him  as  he  moves  to  and  fro,  and  the 
unmistakable  glance  of  ownership  and  love 
tells  the  stranger  what  he  is  to  them.  One 
knows  instantly  how  great  a  vocation  that 
man  has  chosen.  To  mean  so  much  as 
that  to  people  who  need  friendship  at  its 
best  is  beyond  all  outward  comfort  and  sue- , 
cess. 

Let  me  quote  again  Edward  Lincoln  At-^ 
kinson,  who  gave  most  of  his  short  minis- 
try to  the  poor  in  the  South  End  of  Boston. 
He  presents  to  us  vivid  testimony  concern- 


i86  THE   MINISTRY 

ing  the  response  of  what  is  commonly  called 
a  mission  parish: 

This  parish  grows  more  and  more  to  be  part 
of  me,  bone  of  my  bone  and  flesh  of  my  flesh. 
I  am  getting  to  be  loved  in  spite  of  my  short- 
comings. The  personal  element  has  grown.  I 
mean  I  have  the  shepherd's  feeling  as  regards 
the  individuals  of  my  flock. 

"The  deaths  ye  have  died  I  have  watched 

beside, 
And  the  lives  ye  have  lived  are  mine. '  * 

They  are  especially  my  people.  It  is  really 
blessed  comfort,  after  you  have  been  loving  the 
world  in  the  abstract  so  long,  to  be  able  to  love 
and  to  be  loved  concretely — to  think  that  peo- 
ple come  to  you  for  this  and  that  because  you 
are  you,  and  you  are  therefore  something  par- 
ticular to  them.  The  real  joy  of  the  ministry 
has  come  to  be  mine. 

If  you  suspect  that  a  parish  of  very  poor 
people  would  not  do  much  for  their  minis- 
ter, you  have  only  to  read  the  following 
paragraph  from  the  same  man's  life: 

One  day  one  of  his  Brotherhood  men  met  him 
leaving  a  market  with  a  leg  of  lamb  which  he 


COMPENSATIONS  187 

was  taking  to  a  poor  family.  The  man,  know- 
ing in  some  way  how  Atkinson  was  being  forced 
to  take  his  luncheons  in  very  cheap  places,  up- 
braided him  for  giving  everything  away.  "Sup- 
pose you  break  down — you  will  have  nothing  to 
keep  you,"  the  man  cried.  Atkinson  looked 
him  straight  in  the  eye:  "Robert,"  he  said, 
"if  I  needed  anything,  and  went  to  your  door 
for  it,  would  you  refuse  me  ? "  "Of  course  not," 
was  the  quick  answer.  "Well,"  said  Atkinson, 
"every  one  in  my  parish  would  do  for  me  in  the 
same  way." 

The  calls  upon  a  city  clergyman  are  be- 
wildering. He  must  keep  strict  guard  over 
the  hours  for  study  and  meditation,  else  his 
time  will  be  absorbed  in  an  endless  succes- 
sion of  meetings,  public  dinners,  and  civic 
speeches.  What  may  be  his  destruction  is 
also  his  opportunity.  The  city  to-day,  so 
far  from  disregarding  the  ministry,  does 
practically  nothing  without  seeking  its  co- 
operation. That  co-operation,  wisely  given, 
may  be  a  tremendous  help  both  to  the  min- 
istry and  to  the  city.  It  must  not  be  a 
co-operation  which  seeks  applause,  which 
stands  to  shout  when  the  multitude,  or  the 
dominant  group  within  the  city,  cries  out 


i88  THE  MINISTRY 

its  shibboleths.  The  ministry  ought  to  be 
counted  upon  for  the  more  thoughtful  word, 
for  the  less  popular  utterance,  perhaps  for 
the  warning  and  the  rebuke.  He  is  not  the 
most  useful  minister  who  can  always  be 
counted  upon  to  blow  the  coals  of  public 
passion  into  a  flame.  His  office  is  inde- 
pendent of  the  immediate  issue.  He  ought 
to  see  the  principles  within  the  issue  which 
will  meet  the  demands  of  an  ending  ap- 
proved by  God. 

Gladiatorial  combats  continued  in  Rome 
until  a  monk  named  Telemachus  jumped 
into  the  arena  and  the  horror  of  his  sacrifice 
ended  the  disgrace.  I  have  wondered  if  in 
our  own  day  and  land  the  Bolshevistic 
method  of  intercepting  the  process  of  the 
law,  called  lynching,  might  not  abruptly 
end  if  a  neighboring  parson  should  invite 
himself  to  such  a  scene  and  utter  his  indig- 
nant protest  to  the  mob,  and  so  wound 
their  fury  as  to  be  himself  lynched.  I  can 
imagine  that  his  heroism  would  achieve  a 
permanent  victory  for  regular  and  orderly 
government.  This  is  a  type  of  leadership 
which  the  city  needs. 


COMPENSATIONS  189 


IN  THE  MISSION   FIELD 

If  you  wish  to  know  what  is  the  response 
to  the  work  of  a  Christian  missionary  you 
can  do  nothing  better  than  read  St.  Paul's 
Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  You  will  dis- 
cover there  not  only  his  affection  for  his 
Philippian  parishioners,  but  also,  quite  as 
clearly,  their  affection  for  him.  Your  im- 
agination will  open,  and  you  will  picture  to 
yourselves  how  any  one  must  feel  towards 
the  man  who  first  told  him  of  Christ  and 
His  love,  and  then  by  his  daily  deeds  showed 
forth  the  life  of  his  Master.  The  annals  of 
missionary  heroes  are  filled  with  the  revela- 
tion of  fidelity  and  devotion  which  converts 
have  shown  to  their  benefactors.  If  one 
would  have  a  life  not  only  of  heroic  adven- 
ture but  also  of  the  richest  compensation  in 
love,  one  could  do  no  better  than  equip 
oneself  for  the  mission  field,  and  then  take 
ship  for  a  far-away  land. 

Sir  W.  Mackworth  Young,  late  Lieuten- 
ant-Governor of  the  Punjab,  thus  bears  his 
testimony    to    the    response  which    a    fine 


190  THE  MINISTRY 

type  of  Christian  missionary  may  expect  to 
win: 

As  a  business  man  speaking  to  business  men, 
I  am  prepared  to  say  that  the  work  which  has 
been  done  by  missionary  agency  in  India  ex- 
ceeds in  importance  all  that  has  been  done  (and 
much  has  been  done)  by  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  India  since  its  beginning.  Let  me  take 
the  province  which  I  know  best.  I  ask  myself 
what  has  been  the  most  potent  influence  which 
has  been  working  among  the  people  since 
annexation  fifty-four  years  ago,  and  to  that 
question  I  feel  there  is  but  one  answer — Chris- 
tianity, as  set  forth  in  the  lives  and  teaching  of 
Christian  missionaries.  The  Punjab  bears  on 
its  historical  roll  the  names  of  many  Christian 
statesmen  who  have  honored  God  by  their 
lives  and  endeared  themselves  to  the  people  by 
their  faithful  work;  but  I  venture  to  say  that 
if  they  could  speak  to  us  from  the  great  unseen, 
there  is  not  one  of  them  who  would  not  pro- 
claim that  the  work  done  by  men  like  French, 
Clark,  Newton,  and  Forman,  who  went  in  and 
out  among  the  people  for  a  whole  generation  or 
more,  and  who  preached  by  their  lives  the 
nobility  of  self-sacrifice,  and  the  lesson  of  love 
to  God  and  man,  is  a  higher  and  nobler  work, 
and  more  far-reaching  in  its  consequences. 


COMPENSATIONS  191 

If  you  would  know  the  thrill  which  comes 
to  a  victorious  missionary,  imagine  Tucker, 
in  his  church  at  Uganda,  filled  with  seven 
thousand  black  people,  standing  not  far 
from  the  spot  where  only  a  generation  be- 
fore Hannington  had  been  murdered.  It  is 
said  by  those  who  have  been  present  at  one 
of  these  services  that  the  most  convincing 
plea  they  have  ever  heard  for  Christianity 
was  the  Apostles'  Creed  as  this  great  throng 
proclaimed  it. 

Results  are  not  often  so  striking.  Gen- 
erally the  finest  work  is  accomplished  by 
deep-laid  foundations,  and  the  superstruc- 
ture does  not  appear  for  many  years.  But 
occasionally  the  response  is  immediate. 
The  Reverend  Arthur  J.  Brown  describes 
dramatically  such  an  instance  of  quick  re- 
sponse : 

Two  missionaries  went  to  a  village  in  Korea 
in  which  the  Gospel  had  never  been  preached. 
It  was  noised  abroad  that  they  had  come,  and 
practically  the  whole  population  gathered.  The 
interest  was  so  great  that  the  meeting  continued 
until  a  late  hour.  Finally,  the  missionaries 
pleaded  weariness  after  a  hard  day's  journey, 
and  were  shown  into  an  adjoining  room  for  the 


192  THE   MINISTRY 

night.  But  the  people  did  not  go  away,  and 
the  murmuring  of  their  voices  kept  the  mission- 
aries from  sleeping.  About  two  o'clock  one  of 
them  went  out  and  said  almost  impatiently: 
**Why  don't  you  go  home  and  go  to  sleep?  It 
is  very  late,  and  we  are  tired."  The  head  man 
of  the  village  aswered:  "How  can  we  sleep? 
You  have  told  us  that  the  Supreme  Power  is  not 
an  evil  spirit  trying  to  injure  us,  but  a  loving 
God,  who  gave  His  only  Begotten  Son  for  our 
salvation,  and  that  if  we  will  turn  from  our  sins 
and  trust  in  Him,  we  shall  have  deliverance  from 
our  fears,  guidance  in  our  perplexities,  comfort 
in  our  sorrows,  and  a  life  for  ever  with  Him. 
How  can  we  sleep  after  a  message  like  this?" 
How  could  they  indeed  !  And  the  missionaries, 
forgetting  their  weariness,  sat  down  by  those 
poor  people  and  communed  with  them  until  the 
morning  dawned. 

When  I  was  a  theological  student,  I  re- 
member asking  a  Japanese  classmate  if  he 
would  tell  me  how  he  was  converted  to 
Christianity.  He  said  that  he  grew  up  in  a 
little  Japanese  village,  but,  having  in  his 
heart  an  ambition  to  enter  public  life,  he 
went  to  Tokyo.  There  he  learned  at  once 
that  he  must  be  taught  English.  He  wan- 
dered one  day  into  a  mission  school,  asking 


COMPENSATIONS  193 

if  he  could  be  taught  the  chief  language  of 
the  West.  One  day  a  New  Testament  in 
Japanese  was  put  into  his  hands.  He 
opened  it  casually;  it  caught  his  attention; 
he  read  more  and  more  eagerly;  without 
pausing  to  eat  or  sleep,  he  read  it  through; 
then  turning  back  to  the  beginning  he  read 
it  through  again.  He  was  a  man  of  singu- 
lar concentration.  He  told  me  that,  for  the 
time,  the  outside  world  was  blotted  out. 
He  saw  Jesus  only.  He  went  to  the  teacher 
who  had  been  especially  kind  to  him,  plead- 
ing: ^'Tell  me  of  this  Jesus.  He  is  the 
Master  I  have  sought  all  my  life.  This  is 
the  day  for  which  I  have  lived."  Then  he 
poured  out  to  me  his  gratitude  for  the  man 
who  had  brought  him  to  Christ;  and  I  won- 
dered if,  in  the  days  to  come,  any  man 
would  be  as  grateful  to  me  as  my  Japanese 
friend  was  to  the  far-away  missionary  who 
had  been  given  the  great  opportunity  of 
teaching  and  living  Christ  in  a  foreign 
land. 

In  speaking  of  the  mission  field  abroad, 
one  cannot  forget  the  mission  field  at  home. 
As  the  edges  of  our  country  fill  up,  the  terri- 
tory which  may  be  called  in  any  sense  mis- 


194  THE   MINISTRY 

sionary,  decreases.  The  picturesque  con- 
ditions of  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  tend  to 
change  into  the  normal  life  of  the  whole 
Nation.  But  there  are  still  counties  in  im- 
mense States  which  are  only  sparsely  set- 
tled. There  is  still  the  tendency,  when  a 
family  or  an  individual  migrates  from  a 
Pennsylvania  town  to  a  mining-camp  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  to  leave  behind  the  con- 
ventions and  sanctions  of  religion.  In  the 
struggle  for  life,  or  in  the  fascination  of 
making  money  fast,  the  Church  is  nearly 
forgotten,  and,  for  the  time  being,  ignored. 
So  there  must  be  missionaries  at  home. 
The  young  minister  is  sent  to  some  Western 
State,  and  is  given  a  jurisdiction  which 
covers,  let  us  say,  four  hundred  square  miles. 
In  the  settlements  of  this  region  he  holds 
services  in  rotation.  And,  as  he  can,  he 
goes  to  scattered  ranches,  gathering  for  a 
service  the  family  and  the  men  who  work 
on  the  ranch  if  they  are  willing,  baptizing 
children  if  it  is  desired,  showing  friendship 
always.  Thereby,  when  sorrow  comes  to 
that  ranch,  every  one  wants  the  missionary, 
if  he  can  possibly  come,  that  his  word  may 
bring  hope  and  peace  to  the  sorrowing,  and 


COMPENSATIONS  195 

that  he  may  commit  to  God's  keeping  the 
soul  which  has  passed. 

This  missionary  experience  is  outwardly 
hard.  It  means  separation  from  kinsfolk 
and  friends  of  long  standing.  It  means  far 
journeys,  and  little  in  the  way  of  statistics 
to  astonish  the  Church  at  large.  But  it  also 
means  the  sense  that  one  is  bringing  Christ 
to  men  and  women  who  have  no  other 
chance  to  hear  the  Gospel  than  he  and  pos- 
sibly some  other  wandering  missionary  now 
and  then  can  bring  to  them.  There  will 
almost  invariably  be  respect;  sometimes 
overwhelming  gratitude.  Those  who  have 
longed  to  hear  the  old  words  spoken  will 
feel  that  heaven  has  touched  the  earth 
again,  and  some  who  have  not  understood 
will  see  the  Light  for  the  first  time.  In  the 
annals  of  a  missionary  on  our  Western  plains 
there  is  this  story : 

I  baptized  a  litde  girl  in  a  small  town  on  the 
border  of  the  Indian  Territory.  Her  father  was 
a  cattleman.  It  would  be  no  extravagance  to 
say  that  the  "cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills" 
were  his,  if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  there 
were  no  hills  on  his  mighty  ranch.     Each  cat- 


196  THE  MINISTRY 

tie-owner  In  that  country  has  a  different  brand 
with  which  his  cattle  are  marked,  and  by  which 
he  identifies  them  wlien  the  great  "round-ups" 
occur.  The  "mavericks" — young  cattle  born 
on  the  ranch  which  have  not  been  marked — 
belong  to  the  first  man  who  can  get  his  brand- 
ing-iron on  them. 

I  could  only  make  that  town  on  a  week-day, 
and  arrangements  had  been  made  for  the  bap- 
tism in  the  morning.  The  child,  about  six 
years  of  age,  had  just  started  to  the  public 
school,  and  she  had  to  remain  away  from  one 
session  for  the  baptism.  In  our  service  we  sign 
those  who  are  baptized  with  the  sign  of  the 
cross.  When  she  returned  to  school,  the  chil- 
dren pressed  her  with  hard  questions,  desiring 
to  know  what  that  man  with  the  "nightgown" 
on  had  done  to  her,  and  if  she  was  now  any  dif- 
ferent from  what  she  was  before. 

She  tried  to  tell  them  that  she  had  been  made 
"a  member  of  Christ,  the  child  of  God,  and  an 
inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  but  did 
not  very  well  succeed  in  expressing  the  situa- 
tion; so  they  gathered  about  her  with  the  un- 
conscious cruelty  of  children,  and  pushed  her 
over  against  the  theological  wall,  so  the  speak. 
Finally,  when  she  had  exhausted  every  other 
effort,  she  turned  on  them,  her  eyes  flashing 
through  her  tears.     "Well,"   she  said,   lapsing 


COMPENSATIONS  197 

into  the  vernacular,  "I  will  tell  you.  I  was  a 
little  maverick  before,  and  the  man  put  Jesus' 
brand  on  my  forehead,  and  when  He  sees  me 
running  wild  on  the  prairie,  He  will  know  that 
I  am  His  little  girl." 


IV 

THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

Sometimes  the  aged  layman  will  confess 
to  his  young  friend,  who  is  making  up  his 
mind  upon  his  vocation,  **If  I  had  my  life 
to  live  over,  I  should  enter  the  Christian 
ministry/*  That  is  an  eloquent  confession. 
It  sets  the  young  man  thinking.  He  won- 
ders what  he  will  say  when  his  active  work 
is  over,  in  case  he  elects  this  profession  or 
that  form  of  business.  There  will  be  then, 
he  reflects,  only  one  Voice  whose  approba- 
tion he  covets,  and  that  is  the  Voice  of  the 
Most  High.  We  imagine  that,  in  all  humil- 
ity, Pasteur  the  scientist  must  have  been 
conscious  of  God*s  approval;  and  likewise 
John  Bright  the  statesman,  Walter  Scott 
the  writer,  and  Dante  the  poet.  All  these 
men  had  a  sense  of  vocation,  and  could  not 
help  knowing  at  the  last  that  they  had 


198  THE   MINISTRY 

God's  authoritative  commendation.  But  it 
seems  as  if  to  the  Christian  minister  who 
has  Hved  finely  and  unselfishly  there  must 
come  a  more  nearly  invariable  sense  of 
God's  approval.  The  world  has  been  thrust 
into  the  background.  The  things  which  are 
eternal  have  been  chosen  for  the  chief  em- 
phasis. In  spite  of  all  misgiving,  in  spite 
of  all  littleness  and  narrowness,  in  spite  of 
all  failure  and  sin,  there  has  been,  by  God's 
mercy,  an  always  increasing  desire  to  serve 
men  in  the  highest  and  deepest  parts  of 
human  life,  to  kneel  down,  as  the  Master 
knelt,  and  wash  the  disciples'  feet,  to  ascend 
the  mountain  as  the  Lord  went  up,  and  to 
catch,  with  the  other  disciples,  the  glory 
which  God  reveals  to  reverent  and  patient 
spirits. 

A  ministry  faithfully  served  among  men, 
far  or  near,  in  country  or  in  city,  rich  or 
poor,  learned  or  ignorant,  wise  or  foolish, 
may  be  counted  upon  to  bring  to  a  man 
that  most  indestructible  gift,  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  love  of  God. 


Date  Due 

^.',  .J . 

i^  %q  '4 

7 

.n>?v  ^  o'irr 

APK  ..  i:. 

. 

^ 

